UTS Venture Day 2021
Winners
In light of COVID19 you've shown so much resilience. The caliber of the presentations is a testament to yourself and UTS; it's an incredible course. You guys are very lucky to do it.
- Natalie Mann, Judge, Managing Partner, Bader Capital
- Robb Beston - VR Realms︱CommBank & Telstra Best Venture Prize
- Cody Adam - snack︱Kazacos Prize in Entrepreneurship for an Early Stage Venture + AiQual Technology Prize for Innovation
- Caitlin Tanaka- Youth in Motion︱Kazacos Prize in Entrepreneurship for a Social Venture + UTS Business School Dean’s Award for Social Justice
- David Chambers - Ergosphere︱UTS Business School Dean’s Award for Technology Adoption
- Loucineh Mardirossian - Zart Global︱UTS Business School Dean’s Award for a Female Entrepreneur
- Benjamin Kennedy - Gecko.Co Pty Ltd︱Alan Betts Memorial Prize
- Steven Vasilescu - Microgenesis︱Gilbert & Tobin Prize
Judging Panel
| David Langford〡Managing Director and Chief Investment Analyst, Long Lake Research David's 25 years of professional experience is diverse and has been gained in establishing, growth and re-engineering of businesses in the Investment Management, Investment Banking and Communications industries. David has been the Chair of the Venture Day Judging panel since 2016. |
| Ali Linz〡Co-Founder, GroupTogether Ali has over 20 years of experience across the gamut of marketing. Ali gained classical marketing training at the global packaged goods company, Unilever. In her six years, she was responsible for the brand management of household names such as John West, Lux and Domestos. |
| Andrew Anagnostellis | Director Umgeni Investments Andrew is Director and Principal at Umgeni Investments, an active investor in equities and derivatives. Formerly, he worked as the Head of Media and Telco Research at Deutsche Bank. |
| Nathalie Mann | Managing Partner, Bader Capital Nathalie is a Managing Partner at Bader Capital. With experience in operations, strategy, economic and policy development, Nathalie has worked with international development and aid funds across Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. She is passionate about working with NFPs across Asia, particularly working in paediatric and maternal health and renewable energy. |
| Walta Kazzi〡Executive Director, Stratton Walta's finance career began as a graduate program within AGC/Westpac. Not long after, he became his own boss and co-founded Lowestrates.com.au, which Stratton later acquired. In 2014 the company was valued at $120M. |
| John Lee〡Partner, Gilbert + Tobin John is a partner in Gilbert + Tobin’s Intellectual Property group and heads up the Patent sub-practice. John has many years of experience dealing with all aspects of intellectual property law, focusing on patent litigation across a range of industries, including life sciences, resources, and digital technologies. |
| Louise Anderson 〡Manager, Emerging Technology, Commonwealth Bank of Australia Louise is a Manager in the Emerging Technology Team at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. In her role, Louise leads a portfolio of innovation initiatives focused on accelerating the discovery, commercialisation and adoption of new and emerging technologies across the Bank. |
| Paul O'Donohoe〡Client Partner, Commonwealth Bank of Australia Paul has 30+ years of experience in the Australian ICT market and is currently the Client Partner for Commonwealth Bank of Australia at Telstra. He has held roles that range from strategy development (business, product, markets, and partnerships) to operational delivery (sales, solutions, delivery and support). |
| Keong Chow 〡Chapter Lead, Roche Innovation Hub Keong has an extensive track record in driving innovation through Design Thinking, Experimentation and Agile capabilities, building collaborative cultures, solving complex problems and commercial acumen experience. He currently leads a team to accelerate exploration and experimentation of healthcare growth areas with business stakeholders and external partners at Roche. |
| Dr Lionel King 〡Principal at Claritivity, Adjunct Professor UNSW Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering Lionel is a scientist and senior executive. His career has ranged from applied research as a Principal Research Scientist with CSIRO and VP R&D at the innovative biosensor startup, AMBRI, to senior executive roles as Senior VP Global Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs and Senior VP IP Strategy at ResMed. |
Watch all Final Pitches
00:00
[Music]
00:07
good afternoon everyone and welcome to
00:09
venture day 2021
00:16
my name is jorgen schweitzer i'm the
00:17
director of entrepreneurship here at the
00:19
uts business school now welcome you all
00:21
to the uts business school when should i
00:23
the uts
00:24
venture day 2021. uh we already had i
00:27
think julian was mentioning it in the
00:28
live stream we already had a first round
00:30
of 16 pitches
00:32
and they were just amazing we just
00:34
announced the 10
00:35
finalists who are now all in this room
00:37
together with the previous ones and some
00:39
audience can i just hear the audience
00:40
just one more time
00:45
i really need you guys to to to make as
00:47
much noise as you can today
00:49
um so thank you all for coming thank you
00:51
for being here
00:52
um i would like to use this opportunity
00:55
to
00:56
introduce professor glenn whitewick who
00:58
will be opening the
00:59
event for us officially so uh glenn if
01:02
you are
01:03
on the call we'll see if we can get you
01:05
on to the zoom now and on the screen
01:07
here
01:08
and i'll pass it over to you
01:12
um thank you joachim very much and um
01:15
firstly i'd like to
01:16
welcome everybody um unfortunately i'm
01:19
not able to be
01:20
at the venture day kickoff in person and
01:23
i've been able to participate in the
01:24
last couple of years and i just
01:26
thoroughly enjoyed it unfortunately i've
01:27
had some other meetings this afternoon
01:29
and uh not possible to be there um
01:32
it's an absolute honour and pleasure to
01:34
welcome you all to the uts venture day
01:36
for 2021
01:38
i'd like to welcome those that are able
01:40
to participate on campus
01:41
um and of course for those joining us
01:43
online and clearly kind of working in
01:45
this hybrid mode is uh
01:46
is what we've gotten used to over the
01:48
last 12 months
01:50
before to begin the proceedings on
01:52
behalf of all those present i'd also
01:53
like to acknowledge of the gadigal
01:54
people of the orientation
01:56
upon whose ancestral lands uts campus
01:59
city campus now stands
02:00
and also the camera eagle people of the
02:02
aura nation where i'm currently located
02:04
i'd also like to pay my respects to
02:06
elders both past and present
02:08
acknowledging them as traditional
02:09
custodians of knowledge for this land
02:12
i'd also like to thank the commonwealth
02:13
bank of australia telstra enterprise the
02:15
kazakhos foundation
02:17
aiquille technologies raymond choi
02:20
gilbert and tobin and the uts business
02:22
school
02:22
all for their incredible generosity in
02:24
providing awards and prizes for this
02:26
event
02:27
events like this um don't work unless
02:29
you have
02:30
mentors and sponsors and so having
02:32
organizations of that caliber
02:34
working with us and supporting us and
02:36
and and donating money to support pro
02:38
and prizes is is absolutely fantastic so
02:41
thank you to them
02:42
as many of you know our mba in
02:45
entrepreneurship
02:45
is a flagship um is one of our flagship
02:48
entrepreneurship programs at uts
02:50
it's unique within australia's higher
02:52
education landscape
02:54
and with this program we really are
02:55
focused on help helping our students get
02:57
the best possible start
02:58
on their innovation journey from initial
03:01
concepts and ideas right through to
03:03
that you know how do we get it into
03:04
commercialization
03:06
so today is venture day this marks the
03:08
end of the degree program for many mbae
03:10
students
03:11
this is the fifth mba cohort to graduate
03:14
and we're very keen to see them
03:15
all do very very well throughout the
03:18
last year
03:19
or two students have taken a rigorous
03:21
and intensive curriculum studying all
03:23
aspects of business
03:24
innovation entrepreneurship and as part
03:27
of that program
03:28
students have had access to many
03:29
supporters including our an
03:31
entrepreneurial residence mentors and
03:32
teaching staff
03:34
over the last year uts students have
03:37
also shown
03:37
tremendous dedication and grit
03:40
by continuing their studies and
03:42
progressing their startup projects
03:44
despite the unfortunate situation we've
03:46
all found ourselves in
03:47
due to the ongoing health crisis there
03:50
are also
03:51
the many resources and extracurricular
03:52
programs like our uts startups program
03:54
that this university has to offer
03:56
and not to forget the friends and family
03:58
people that are working behind the
03:59
scenes
04:00
your friends and your family who support
04:02
you inspire you
04:03
probably critique you um and and help
04:06
you
04:07
get through your studies and bring these
04:09
wonderful ideas out into the into the
04:11
world
04:12
we hope a lot of them are able to join
04:13
today and i'd like to thank them
04:15
for their contribution and support uts
04:18
is incredibly proud to be part of the
04:20
entrepreneurial community
04:22
we see our role as enabling students in
04:24
developing the necessary knowledge and
04:25
skills we see our role as helping
04:27
students
04:28
meet the right people and develop their
04:29
entrepreneurial project and we see our
04:31
role as change agents in realising
04:34
australia's innovation and
04:35
entrepreneurship potential
04:37
i'd also like to acknowledge the
04:38
business school's director of
04:39
entrepreneurship associate professor
04:41
yokom swaitza
04:42
yokom is just an absolute wonderful
04:44
leader as you all know
04:46
all the teaching staff the entrepreneurs
04:48
in residence entrepreneurial residents
04:50
then various mentors administrators and
04:52
of course not and finally of course
04:54
our mba students for their incredible
04:56
hard-working making this program a
04:58
success
04:59
i'm really looking forward to welcoming
05:00
the next cohort and seeing how
05:02
all the ideas that have been developed
05:04
by our students today
05:05
um make their way out into the world so
05:07
thank you very much for the time
05:09
this afternoon again i'd love to have
05:11
been there apologies that i'm not
05:12
um but i'll now hand back to joachim
05:16
[Applause]
05:19
thank you thanks thanks very much glenn
05:21
for for that message to everyone
05:23
um so really it is just amazing to see
05:26
what talent
05:26
has been coming through uts over the
05:28
last couple of years and
05:30
in this role that i'm very lucky to have
05:32
uh we're at the heart of it so
05:34
i think we're really doing an amazing
05:37
job and giving these entrepreneurs um
05:40
support support that they need and what
05:41
you will see today what you witness
05:43
today
05:44
is how lucky we are to have you to
05:46
choose uts
05:47
to uh make this journey and do this
05:49
journey with us
05:51
so um it's a few housekeeping items
05:53
maybe so if you're
05:54
if you're on twitter if you is anyone
05:56
still on twitter actually
05:58
um if you're on twitter please use our
06:00
hashtags at uts business and uta
06:02
startups
06:03
uh to uh you know share whatever you
06:05
feel about um
06:07
the pictures today and i think um i
06:09
would definitely use this opportunity
06:11
now to introduce and also thank our
06:13
fantastic
06:14
group of judges we have 10 of them so
06:17
this is uh
06:17
20 eyes on these start-up entrepreneurs
06:20
we have david langford ali linz
06:22
andrew agnes dallas john lee luis
06:25
anderson
06:26
nathalie mann walter kazzy palter
06:28
o'donoghe
06:29
and kyung chow and dr lionel king so a
06:32
huge round of applause for our judges
06:34
today
06:35
who are
06:38
giving their time they already have
06:39
given a lot of time because they got us
06:41
to this point which is fantastic
06:43
so um i'm really really glad to have you
06:45
here
06:46
and to watch the final 10 again and i
06:49
remember many of you saying in the
06:50
previous years that the second round is
06:52
so valuable
06:53
because you get to see these pitches
06:55
again and you start asking different
06:57
questions and you did in the first round
06:59
and you're really getting to the bottom
07:00
of it so um good on you and
07:02
enjoy this i know you're already
07:04
exhausted but we're going to get you
07:05
through the last 10
07:06
and then we're going to be finishing
07:08
with this 10 a round of 10 probably
07:09
around
07:10
6 o'clock 5 56 o'clock then judges will
07:13
deliberate
07:14
in the meantime as uh julian i think
07:16
already announced we will have some
07:17
panel discussion in the online stream
07:20
and then around 6
07:21
30 we will come back here into this
07:23
space and announce the winners with the
07:25
awards ceremony so without further ado i
07:27
would like to
07:28
uh then oh there's one more thing we
07:30
have a few awards to give away today and
07:32
i also want to
07:33
quickly introduce those so our um
07:36
headlining award is the com bank and
07:38
telstra best venture price which is a
07:40
ten thousand dollar in cash award which
07:41
is just amazing i think that's a
07:43
round of applause that we can have right
07:45
here and right then
07:48
we then have again the casa casa cost
07:51
foundation providing two prizes this
07:53
year
07:53
the entrepreneur uh prize and
07:55
entrepreneurship for social venture
07:56
enterprise and entrepreneurship
07:58
for early stage venture so a big round
07:59
of allows for that one too
08:02
each of those are at five thousand
08:04
dollars in cash and five thousand
08:06
dollars in kind
08:07
we have the ai qual technologies price
08:09
for innovation
08:11
at five thousand dollars we have the uts
08:13
business school who's been very very
08:14
generous again this year
08:15
with three awards each five thousand
08:17
dollars in cash
08:18
for a social justice venture a
08:21
technology adaptation venture and a
08:22
female entrepreneur which i'm incredibly
08:24
happy about to see coming
08:26
into our awards portfolio and the alan
08:29
beds memorial prize with 1
08:31
500 and the gilbert and tobin price for
08:34
ip and legal advice
08:36
valued at 5 000 in kind so big round of
08:39
applause for our donors
08:42
[Applause]
08:44
what we will see now is the 10 pitches
08:46
in tight order
08:48
8 minutes for every presenter 5 minutes
08:50
roughly presentation 3 minutes q a
08:53
the same format that we run in uh the
08:55
earlier session today
08:56
and um the timer will be uh going
08:59
and once you get into overtime or going
09:02
close to overtime the next speaker will
09:03
come on
09:04
so enjoy the show ladies and gentlemen
09:06
and uh really uh
09:07
very very glad to see you and see
09:09
everyone here and to see what's what
09:11
today will bring
09:11
so john it's your stage thanks jorgen
09:18
so g'day i'm john gunning and i'm the
09:20
founder of gator crm
09:22
which is the missing crm for linkedin
09:25
now as you all probably know linkedin is
09:27
the largest
09:28
social networking platform in the world
09:31
for business people
09:32
there's over 706 million people on the
09:34
platform
09:35
and a demographic which is highly
09:37
educated and highly paid
09:39
and that's why we believe that linkedin
09:41
is just a great platform
09:43
for lead generation and why gator crm
09:46
loves linkedin so
09:50
who's the customer well it's enterprise
09:52
sales people
09:53
but unlike the photo they're not hitting
09:56
the
09:57
phone and cold calling anymore but
09:59
instead they're direct messaging
10:01
and they're socially networking on
10:03
platforms like linkedin
10:04
in order to generate leads and in fact
10:08
over 70 of enterprise social outreach is
10:11
now
10:11
performed on social with over 80 percent
10:15
of b2b leads
10:16
coming in from linkedin and we think
10:18
that's just an incredible opportunity
10:21
so what problem are we trying to solve
10:24
well
10:25
keeping track of social is really hard
10:27
for those doing lead generation
10:29
on that platform it's hard to quickly
10:31
answer what conversation
10:33
is where and who is the last person that
10:35
i spoke with
10:36
and what did we speak about and what's
10:38
my next best action
10:41
the existing solutions are really poor
10:43
you can use linkedin itself and it's
10:45
inbox
10:46
which is not a crm or you could use an
10:48
enterprise crm
10:50
if you have one but then you have a
10:52
completely disconnected experience
10:54
from where that you're doing your lead
10:56
generation you've got your enterprise
10:58
crm over here
10:59
and linkedin is sitting over here
11:03
so what's the solution well
11:06
gator crm sits directly within linkedin
11:10
it's right where you are as you're
11:12
prospecting you've got the ability to
11:14
log activities
11:15
to take notes and schedule calls and
11:18
your
11:19
productivity is just boosted because
11:21
you're already
11:22
in that platform where you're
11:24
prospecting and as you can see i can see
11:26
the complete
11:27
sales conversation history from right
11:29
where i am
11:32
from a management team point of view i
11:34
have around 20 years experience in
11:36
software development
11:38
most recently about four years as head
11:40
of product for a global
11:42
software company my technical partner is
11:44
richard bailey
11:46
and richard uh runs a software
11:48
development outsourcing provider
11:49
we actually go back a long way all the
11:51
way back to school richard has his own
11:53
company and he's currently operating
11:55
that from the czech republic
11:57
so we have a huge amount of experience
11:59
in bringing these types of solutions
12:01
to market and speaking of the market
12:05
it's large and untapped 706 million
12:09
of that we think that we have a service
12:11
addressable of around 25 million
12:14
sales people or people in sales related
12:16
roles
12:17
and then that lands us at around half a
12:19
million customers
12:20
now at a 30 a month selling price
12:24
that is 180 million in arr
12:27
and just an incredible opportunity the
12:30
business model
12:31
is software as a service it's per user
12:34
per month
12:34
really straightforward and easy to
12:36
understand
12:38
it's free to paid if you have less than
12:40
500 contacts
12:41
then it's free over and it's 30
12:45
a month we've had great product traction
12:48
in fact we're really excited that our
12:50
beta is launching next month
12:52
and we've had a huge amount of interest
12:54
around that but importantly
12:56
we've talked to a whole lot of people
12:58
about the problem
12:59
of social lead generation and we think
13:02
that we have a great solution
13:04
in go to crm to that problem
13:07
zooming in on one of those particular
13:09
interviewees
13:10
aaron is an enterprise marketing
13:12
professional from seattle
13:14
now he uses salesforce and he's in the
13:16
software business
13:17
and one of his pet peeves is when his
13:19
sales guys are doing this early
13:21
prospecting
13:22
they're not actually recording anything
13:24
within salesforce
13:26
so when it comes time for aaron to do a
13:28
targeted marketing campaign
13:30
he he doesn't have the data that he
13:31
needs to be able to do it correctly
13:34
because it's just not recorded so for
13:36
aaron gada crm really fills that social
13:39
gap
13:40
in his sales force automation life cycle
13:44
the competition is linked in it itself
13:47
they have a product
13:48
called sales navigator which is really
13:50
more of a people search than the crm
13:52
and then on the other side we have those
13:55
full-fledged enterprise crms like
13:57
microsoft dynamics
13:58
as well as salesforce fantastic products
14:01
but
14:02
really poor social integration you have
14:04
that two system problem
14:05
that aaron alluded to and things just
14:07
simply get lost
14:10
and then what we think hits the sweet
14:12
spot
14:13
is gator crm a fully fledged crm system
14:16
with deep in context social capabilities
14:20
much more productive and modern solution
14:23
for milestones for the company i've
14:25
mentioned the beta
14:27
in april we're planning on a seed raise
14:30
and that's all heading towards our
14:31
general availability in the middle of
14:33
the year
14:34
later in the year we're planning on
14:36
making some more hires and really
14:37
building out that product
14:38
roadmap and this is all before an
14:41
audacious goal
14:42
of over 10 000 users on the platform in
14:46
quarter one
14:47
in 22 and that's gada crm
14:51
there's two things that you can do for
14:53
us if you have interest
14:55
in the product please jump on the
14:57
website we'd be we'd love to have you on
14:59
board
15:00
and alternatively or and if you're in
15:03
sales
15:04
or have relationships with sales
15:06
organizations
15:07
who might have a need for gator crm then
15:09
please
15:10
reach out to us we'd love to hear about
15:13
how we can help you
15:14
thanks very much
15:15
[Applause]
15:21
questions please uh it's a two-part
15:24
question but
15:25
is what's stopping linkedin from from
15:27
doing this
15:28
it's a really good question actually
15:30
linkedin has a sales navigator product
15:32
and a recruiter product
15:34
they could potentially do this but they
15:36
have demonstrated
15:37
i think that they actually have this
15:40
kind of a wall that they have
15:41
where i don't think that they'll be able
15:44
to fully
15:45
uh interrogate the opportunity and then
15:48
keep the other people who have their
15:49
profiles and companies
15:51
in line so i really think it's a
15:53
third-party opportunity
15:55
um but yes that is a risk to the model
15:58
they could decide to do something but
16:00
in that case we'd hopefully be acquired
16:02
by them or be well ahead in terms of the
16:04
product development roadmap
16:05
which leads me to my second question
16:07
obviously in tech
16:09
things are right for disruption all the
16:10
time what happens if something happens
16:12
to linkedin
16:13
um that's a good question it's our idea
16:17
to really build out beyond just linkedin
16:19
to support other
16:20
social platforms as they come along the
16:22
most obvious one is facebook
16:24
although you know it's primarily a a
16:27
social non-business network it also
16:30
skews
16:30
pretty heavily to some business
16:32
activities so that would be our second
16:34
but what we're doing technically will
16:36
enable us to drop into really any of
16:38
those platforms and have context
16:40
john just wanted to clarify are you
16:42
integrating with linkedin
16:44
or you are correct how are you doing
16:46
that are you we're sitting as a sidebar
16:48
yeah next to linkedin and basically
16:50
we're picking up the context of what's
16:52
going on within
16:53
linkedin and that's how we're able to as
16:56
you're browsing to serve up
16:58
the right contact or the right company
17:00
etc
17:02
right i okay so you're scraping that
17:04
conversation uh no not scraping we're
17:06
sitting as a site as a sidebar
17:08
and we're accessing the context of
17:10
linkedin
17:13
so as a crm can you sit up set up
17:15
workflows so that you can aggregate
17:17
the intel you're getting and then send
17:19
out an automatic flow of future
17:20
marketing messaging
17:22
uh sorry marketing messaging where so
17:24
that you can continue in that
17:26
in that sales development outreach
17:29
yes as far as go to market we can
17:31
definitely reach through and obviously
17:33
the linkedin platform is a primary
17:34
platform that we would use to do that
17:36
absolutely so you can reach out to a
17:38
hundred thousand people at once who
17:39
have reached a certain milestone or a
17:41
trigger
17:42
yes to get correct yes great
17:46
thanks very much guys
18:12
good afternoon my name is lucine and i'm
18:14
the founder of zart
18:15
the ultimate destination for demi fine
18:18
and statement jewelry
18:19
for the rest of us i have always loved
18:21
jewelry ever since i was young
18:24
so i've always loved jewelry ever since
18:26
i was young
18:28
i think it's an amazing expression of
18:30
your style and your personality
18:32
unfortunately i've always had a problem
18:35
of finding jewelry that actually fits
18:38
in fact when i was 21 my dad actually
18:40
gifted me
18:42
his personal ring so that i had
18:44
something special to wear
18:46
and so i wouldn't feel so left out
18:49
recently there was a movement on social
18:51
media trying to get
18:53
more representation for chubby fingers
18:56
they were trying to have more
18:58
representation in marketing but also
19:00
urge brands to increase their size
19:02
options
19:02
despite this the multi-billion dollar
19:05
jewelry industry
19:06
continues to ignore and underserve a
19:08
huge part of the population
19:11
and this is especially true within the
19:13
demi fine category
19:15
and by demi fine what i'm talking about
19:17
is not
19:18
your cheaper costume jewellery and it's
19:21
not the cartiers of the world with
19:23
ultra fine luxury jewelry
19:26
it's that sweet spot in between it's
19:29
where
19:29
demi found jewelry enables people to
19:32
have high quality jewelry things that
19:34
are made from sterling silver or up to
19:36
14 karat gold
19:37
and semi-precious gems but at a much
19:40
more reasonable and affordable price
19:41
point
19:43
it's the fastest growing category at 16
19:46
and is estimated to be worth 50 billion
19:48
dollars
19:50
but alas as you can imagine it's still
19:51
not size inclusive
19:53
and as somebody who was forced to wear
19:54
men's jewelry for most of my life i can
19:56
tell you men don't have a lot of options
19:58
either it's kind of slim pickings
20:00
and that's why i started zar because i
20:02
believe that neither your size nor your
20:04
gender should hold you back from rocking
20:06
gorgeous high quality jewelry so in 2020
20:10
we went live
20:11
i launched as an mvp to test the
20:13
messaging and the designs
20:15
and i launched a global direct to
20:16
consumer online brand
20:18
that provides handmade beautiful
20:21
jewellery
20:22
that's priced between forty and two
20:24
hundred dollars currently
20:25
and we offer the widest range of sizes
20:28
in ready to wear jewelry in particular
20:29
rings
20:32
although i kept the marketing spend
20:34
minimal at first in this testing phase
20:36
one of my key
20:37
go to market strategies was to engage
20:39
with the key influencers
20:40
and they're really loving and embracing
20:42
this brand
20:44
i will want to this is just a snapshot
20:46
of a few of them and i will point out
20:48
kendra dandy in the middle she's a
20:49
prominent african-american artist
20:51
she rarely and i mean rarely ever
20:54
promotes any brands
20:55
but she shared the photo of her ring on
20:58
her artwork
20:59
because she has been screaming and
21:01
sharing her frustration of never finding
21:03
jewelry that fits and one of her
21:05
followers actually recommended that
21:07
i would not have been able to achieve
21:08
this had i not been such an authentic
21:10
brand with a very clear vision
21:12
and mission and this is what really
21:16
helps
21:17
that to stand out amongst this
21:18
competitive space
21:20
it is the authenticity but also the size
21:22
range now
21:24
when it comes to ring sizing alone most
21:26
brands only offer three sizes between a
21:28
six and an eight
21:29
that offers between five and thirteen so
21:32
significantly more options
21:35
and so this the results are great so far
21:38
we're
21:38
having some great traction we're in the
21:40
top fifteen percent of shopify
21:42
stores that were launched the same week
21:44
and this is just based off of web
21:45
traffic alone
21:46
i've sold over 200 pieces of jewelry
21:48
across four markets
21:50
the us and australia being my biggest
21:52
followed by canada and the uk
21:54
average sale price is 112 and i'm
21:57
currently maintaining an average of 50
21:59
profit across the board and i plan on
22:02
increasing or maintaining this
22:04
currently my customer breakdown includes
22:07
about 40 percent who come for the size
22:09
ranges and this is on both sides of the
22:11
spectrum people who can't find smaller
22:12
sizes as well as larger ones
22:14
40 are loving the designs they're
22:17
fashion forward
22:18
and also the 20 who are looking for
22:20
gender neutral options
22:23
so while my customers are loving it i
22:25
went out and spoke to a few of them and
22:27
in fact i
22:28
focused a lot on my repeat customers and
22:30
i asked where we could improve or what
22:32
they would love to see and something
22:34
that kept coming up was oh if i'd
22:36
been able to see the pieces up close and
22:38
try them i would have bought more
22:40
which got me thinking this is actually a
22:42
problem that's quite common with a lot
22:43
of direct to consumer brands
22:45
and while my competitor majorie is
22:47
addressing this by building brick and
22:48
mortar stores
22:50
i want to introduce style boxes which
22:53
essentially
22:54
allow customers to try on the jewelry
22:56
keep what they love
22:57
send back what they don't want and this
22:59
is a tried and tested model it's worked
23:01
with brands like stitch fix in apparel
23:03
and also warby parker when it comes to
23:05
glasses and i think just considering the
23:07
fact
23:08
with the um cost of shipping for the
23:11
small items like jewellery it'll be
23:13
quite an
23:13
effective solution and i would love to
23:17
launch this in collaboration with an
23:18
influencer
23:19
someone like flex mami when she shared
23:22
that on her stories we saw a huge influx
23:25
of
23:26
sales and also engagement which was
23:28
great
23:31
and so far our growth is great but
23:34
and there is a really exciting future if
23:37
we continue bootstrapping i mean
23:38
we had a great month in november
23:40
reaching 10 000 in
23:42
revenue um and so in the next few years
23:44
we see that
23:45
steadily increasing however at this
23:47
pivotal point is that
23:48
i would love to see an investment of
23:50
approximately 1 million dollars for seed
23:52
funding to really help
23:54
accelerate the growth we could turn that
23:56
10 000 into 100
23:57
000 and reach some pretty big milestones
24:00
in a few years
24:02
considering the fact that my biggest
24:04
market currently with minimal effort
24:06
is the us and the us is the third
24:08
biggest jewelry market in the world
24:10
it's kind of exciting it's hard not to
24:12
get too excited
24:14
with that one million dollars i would
24:15
invest it firstly into
24:17
building some of the team so far i've
24:19
been bootstrapping this and
24:20
have worked with some great experts in
24:22
these areas on ad hoc basis but i'd love
24:24
to have dedicated teams
24:26
looking after particularly the digital
24:28
integration e-commerce and then also
24:29
market insights and our media buying
24:32
and then of course the rest of the
24:33
funding would be used to
24:35
help with product delivery and
24:38
enhancements and then also advertising
24:40
and continuing with some great
24:41
collaborations
24:43
so for today my ask is if i was to walk
24:46
away with some of the prize money i
24:48
would use that to
24:49
expedite the style boxes and also i'm
24:52
asking for some introductions to
24:54
potential investors
24:55
and i just wanted to leave you with a
24:57
photo of my dad who now gets to wear one
24:59
of my designs
25:00
thank you
25:01
[Applause]
25:08
no questions i'll lead off
25:11
um the idea of the starboxes
25:14
is an interesting growth path
25:17
what are the financial implications of
25:20
using
25:21
those those boxes in terms of working
25:24
capital in terms of impact on margin
25:27
have you thought that through um a
25:30
little bit i mean
25:31
i would love to just initially just
25:32
starting up in a pilot market like
25:34
australia just to see how
25:35
that goes um and the the idea would be
25:39
that there would be obviously revenue
25:40
upfront
25:41
that would be needed but we would see
25:44
i mean i've done some projections in
25:45
terms of like when to break even it
25:47
might take a little while but i do think
25:48
that
25:49
just based off of the repeat customers
25:51
what i've noticed is that they're
25:52
buying more as they go and so the cost
25:55
value of each
25:56
customer is increasing which means i
25:58
need less customers to
25:59
achieve so that's that's the strategy
26:01
behind it
26:06
um just interested to know your thoughts
26:08
on why you think all these
26:09
long-established competitors haven't
26:12
really identified the fact that you know
26:15
chubby fingers i think as you call it is
26:17
something they just ignore or they don't
26:19
do it properly what's the feedback
26:20
you're getting
26:21
i mean it's the exact same in the
26:22
apparel industry i mean the average
26:24
woman in australia is size between a 14
26:26
and a 16 not one australian designer
26:28
makes above a 16.
26:30
so they're if you think of the average
26:32
woman so think about that missing market
26:34
and
26:34
it's a constant battle as to i mean it
26:37
does add to complexity if you're
26:39
offering more sizes
26:40
but if you don't have minimum quantities
26:42
and you can work with your manufacturers
26:43
i mean honestly i don't know why
26:45
i think it just adds to the complexity
26:46
but it's a question in apparel and
26:48
they continue to do this so is it i'm
27:04
sorry
27:12
hi everyone i'm david chambers and i'm
27:14
the founder of ergosphere.ai
27:16
and i'm presenting our first product
27:17
game plan a manufacturing planning
27:19
system powered by artificial
27:20
intelligence
27:22
most people i speak to expect
27:23
manufacturing companies to be like
27:24
highly optimised machines
27:26
and for the most part they're wrong
27:28
planning and manufacturing
27:29
is really hard firms spend a lot of time
27:32
building comprehensive production plans
27:34
but problems inevitably occur materials
27:36
don't arrive on time
27:37
machinery breaks down staff fall ill the
27:39
list goes on
27:41
issues like these require complex
27:42
changes to plans that most companies
27:44
simply can't produce in a timely manner
27:46
resulting in ad hoc inefficient and
27:48
unreliable production
27:51
companies like sap oracle and microsoft
27:54
have tried to build systems that help
27:55
but their systems designed for really
27:58
huge enterprises
27:59
just don't work for smes we interviewed
28:01
many local manufacturers and they
28:03
described them as
28:04
intimidating expensive and importantly
28:06
they just can't handle unexpected events
28:09
and this problem is huge so according to
28:11
ibis world there's over 85 000
28:13
manufacturers in australia
28:14
and more than six and a half million
28:16
worldwide of this
28:18
eighty percent are smes each facing
28:20
these kinds of problems on a daily basis
28:22
creating a massive and underserved
28:24
market
28:26
that's why we've built game plan an
28:27
intuitive and graphical planning system
28:29
this is how it works first you build a
28:31
digital tween of your facility
28:32
identifying all of your work and storage
28:34
areas
28:35
next you populate your production
28:36
catalog most users will be
28:39
using systems like my obj so game plan
28:41
connects your digital twin to your
28:42
existing data source
28:44
next you set up your product recipes
28:46
their bill of materials and your task
28:47
dependencies
28:49
with this all set up you can enter
28:51
planning mode when you're connected to
28:52
an external data source you'll see your
28:54
jobs automatically arrive
28:55
game plan identifies which tasks are
28:57
available for assignment
28:59
when you've selected a task and where it
29:01
will be complete instructions are sent
29:02
to the factory floor via mobile app
29:04
where workers can update job statuses in
29:06
real time
29:09
the app also finds out when errors occur
29:11
so here workbay 2 has encountered a
29:13
problem
29:13
and is offline this poses a challenge
29:15
how do you re-prioritize your work with
29:17
limited capacity
29:18
this is where plan assist can help here
29:20
an ai planning agent presents you with
29:22
an ordered list of tasks
29:23
based on the planning policy it has
29:25
learned as the agent collects more
29:26
real-time data
29:27
so too the policy improves we can
29:30
demonstrate just how powerful these
29:31
agents are through autonomous mode
29:34
the policy that you're going to see
29:36
performed here was learned through the
29:37
equivalent of four years of experience
29:39
which we simulated in just five hours
29:41
also the jobs that it's handling are
29:43
being generated randomly so the agent's
29:45
never seen them before
29:46
and yet maintains high efficiency
29:50
so game plan is an easy to use
29:51
application that automates production
29:53
planning in real time
29:55
which we're commercializing via the sas
29:56
model our simulation construction tools
29:59
are available for free to encourage new
30:00
users
30:01
and our mobile app is priced at ten
30:03
dollars per week with planning agents at
30:04
ninety dollars per week
30:05
pricing us about sixty below our nearest
30:08
competitor
30:09
on the cost side agents can take up to
30:10
24 hours to learn an effective
30:12
real-world policy costing 180
30:14
and our hosting fees come in at 20 per
30:16
week per user
30:17
this results in an annual gross profit
30:19
per user of just under 4 thousand
30:21
dollars creating a local opportunity of
30:23
440 million
30:24
and a global opportunity of more than 33
30:26
billion
30:29
so what have we achieved so far we have
30:30
a first paying customer who's
30:31
participating in our alpha testing right
30:33
now
30:34
we also picked up most innovative
30:36
prototype and the people's choice award
30:37
at the uts tech celebrator 2020
30:39
and we've been awarded the new south
30:41
wales mvp grant looking forward
30:43
we'll be implementing our beta phase
30:46
with our six local manufacturers in july
30:48
and we'll be increasing our focus on
30:50
direct sales aiming for 20 subscribers
30:52
by the end of 2021
30:54
creating an annual recurring revenue of
30:55
104 000 and a net loss of 49
30:58
800. the following year we'll be
31:00
implementing features for our agents to
31:02
communicate
31:02
directly and autonomously with customers
31:04
and suppliers which we'll be using as a
31:06
marketing funnel
31:08
we'll also be expanding our sales team
31:09
in pursuit of 150 paid subscribers
31:12
resulting in an are of 780 000 and an
31:15
ebitda of 165
31:17
500 in 2023 we plan to raise a seed
31:20
round and grow our team significantly
31:22
as we chase a thousand paying users with
31:24
an with an ar 5.2 million
31:26
and an ebitda of 1.16 million
31:30
this is the team that's working hard to
31:31
bring this to life you've already met me
31:33
uh
31:33
i have more than 10 years of experience
31:35
in manufacturing
31:36
from sales and marketing through to
31:38
digital transformation i hold an mba
31:40
and i'm currently studying a phd taking
31:42
these planning agents
31:43
and distributing them into a large cloud
31:45
manufacturing network
31:47
monica is our design director she has
31:48
more than seven years of experience in
31:50
architecture
31:51
she has experience in 3d modelling and
31:53
graphic design
31:54
nathan's our cto he has more than eight
31:56
years of experience in software
31:58
development and has led teams on
31:59
projects that have
32:00
amassed more than 50 million downloads
32:02
and in the next week or two we're
32:03
finalizing recruitment
32:04
of a data scientist who's a fellow phd
32:06
student in deep learning
32:07
and he has more than four years of
32:08
experience in data science at some asx
32:10
100 companies
32:13
so to finish off uh we really feel like
32:15
we have the talent and the resources to
32:16
bring this product to market
32:18
and so from you guys what we're asking
32:20
for is your support
32:21
we're sure that many of you in this room
32:22
and all you guys watching at home know
32:24
someone in this market in this industry
32:26
facing these problems daily and we would
32:28
love to meet them so connect with us
32:30
at ergosphere.ai
32:37
questions guys
32:42
uh just want to ask how much
32:44
customization is required for
32:46
each implementation so what we're doing
32:48
is we're building out our library of
32:50
digital assets first and foremost
32:52
uh and so our first pilot users will be
32:54
will be creating custom equipment for
32:55
them
32:56
as that expands it comes becomes more
32:58
generic and it'll be just like playing a
32:59
video game so just
33:01
click in place when it comes to setting
33:02
up your factory uh in terms of
33:05
uh your production flows it's entirely
33:07
customizable so
33:08
however you do business we can
33:10
accommodate
33:13
yes how do you quantify the savings or
33:16
benefits for a business i mean
33:17
presumably you
33:19
really presenting a more efficient way
33:21
of doing things they'd probably say to
33:23
you well look it's fine my notebook
33:24
works and
33:25
the factory manager wouldn't be able to
33:26
do this anyway so
33:28
how do you demonstrate the benefit and
33:30
what sort of the real life experiences
33:33
have you sort of encountered so we're
33:35
taking a data driven approach
33:36
in that we don't want to estimate kind
33:38
of efficiency gains because every
33:39
organization is different
33:40
what i can tell you is that our pilot
33:42
firm they're saving about 11 hours a
33:44
week of planning
33:45
which is a massive return on investment
33:46
for 100 a week
33:48
and they're seeing something in the
33:50
double digit efficiency gains in terms
33:51
of productivity
33:52
and so we would just like to expand the
33:54
trial program and get some more hard
33:56
data
33:58
it seems that the focus is on efficiency
34:03
both in terms of operating and i suppose
34:05
application of capital as well
34:08
what's the possibility in terms of using
34:11
your software
34:12
in innovation processes so you know
34:16
inventing new products uh so i would say
34:19
that
34:21
i'm inclined to talk about my phd here
34:23
because uh what these agents are really
34:25
really good at
34:26
is uh managing highly dynamic
34:29
environments
34:29
and so what it does is it actually
34:31
fosters collaboration we've got this
34:32
interesting problem in australia
34:34
where firms don't collaborate because
34:35
they don't they don't find anybody else
34:36
to be particularly reliable
34:38
and so with a good planning agent
34:40
especially in a networked situation
34:42
we can start pulling resources from
34:44
different organizations that we didn't
34:45
know existed
34:46
we can be leveraging additional capacity
34:48
and so it does create opportunities
34:50
to foster these new new designs new new
34:53
innovation
34:54
but as far as
34:58
managing something for the first time
35:00
it's going to be
35:01
as good as the information you give it
35:03
and so building experience is critical
35:05
for this type of machine learning
35:07
um so you'll tell me it's not but it
35:09
seems like a fairly complex bit of
35:10
software and you'll be working in a
35:12
variety of different
35:13
bespoke environments each time so how
35:15
well resource will you be for problem
35:16
solving and debugging as you find there
35:18
are some likes in your system
35:20
so we feel very very well resourced to
35:21
be frank um as far as the environments
35:23
themselves they are incredibly
35:25
simplistic
35:26
they look really great uh but the back
35:28
end stuff is really quite
35:30
straightforward
35:30
it's mostly about representing
35:32
everything that you have visually
35:33
uh and so if we can do that well the
35:35
intuitive experience grows
35:37
we don't anticipate running into too
35:39
many curveballs as far as production is
35:41
concerned
35:41
obviously we can we can deal with things
35:43
like um conveyor belts and actual items
35:46
moving around the factory
35:47
that's just content that we want to add
35:50
and so once we have clients that are
35:51
using those kinds of systems we will add
35:53
them
35:55
thank you
36:26
over one billion students are falling
36:28
behind because of covert
36:30
why because teachers don't have the
36:33
resources to adapt
36:35
hi my name's cody adam and i'm the
36:37
co-founder of snack
36:38
we're a mobile first app that enables
36:41
teachers to create
36:42
bite-sized educational videos
36:45
i'd like you to meet susan she's been a
36:47
teacher for over 25 years
36:50
but she's also my mum and never has she
36:53
had to adapt faster
36:54
than when covert hit i watched her spend
36:57
hours searching for online videos
36:59
that had the right content presented at
37:02
the right level
37:03
but were the right length to keep her
37:05
class engaged
37:06
now in speaking to my mum as well as
37:08
many other teachers it became
37:10
clear that these passionate people knew
37:12
exactly what content their classes
37:14
needed to learn
37:15
and how it should be presented but they
37:17
didn't have an efficient
37:19
and up-to-date way to do so snack
37:22
solves this problem we leverage mobile
37:25
first
37:26
intuitive content creation tools to make
37:28
it easier
37:30
and faster for teachers to create video
37:33
right now teachers have two options they
37:35
can skim through online libraries
37:37
searching to see if there's enough
37:39
content presented at the right level
37:41
but with this method teachers tell us
37:43
that they often have to settle for
37:44
something
37:45
that just gets the point across the
37:47
other method
37:48
is to use the current segmented video
37:50
production tools to film
37:52
edit and distribute video that takes
37:55
hours
37:56
and it's time that teachers just don't
37:57
have
37:59
this is a real problem right now we know
38:03
this because in the past 30 days we've
38:04
had over 100 teachers sign up to use our
38:06
beta when we launch
38:08
that means that in the coming months
38:09
snack will be in the classroom of over 3
38:11
000 students
38:13
snack is interactive video
38:16
teachers break their explanations down
38:18
into 60-second recordings called
38:20
bytes and in just a few taps teachers
38:23
fill these bytes with creative assets
38:26
like quotes graphs text
38:29
and scribbles and they use their voice
38:31
and finger to guide students
38:33
through each bite students then get a
38:35
beautiful playback experience as their
38:37
teacher walks them through lessons
38:39
step by step but the real magic of snack
38:43
is in the conversation students reply to
38:46
their teachers bytes
38:48
with their own bytes copying its
38:50
contents and adding their own voice they
38:52
can use this to ask
38:53
questions riff on their teachers ideas
38:56
or start discussions themselves
38:58
our business model is aligned uh with
39:01
our
39:01
values of democratizing access for
39:04
education for everyone that means that
39:06
teachers can use our core product for
39:08
free with unlimited public storage but
39:10
for unlimited private storage
39:11
a more advanced content creation tool
39:14
set and more like
39:15
organizational tools they can pay for a
39:16
10 subscription now just to clarify
39:19
teachers are already paying out of their
39:22
pocket for their own resources
39:23
we've spoken to teachers that spend
39:26
between one and five dollars
39:28
every lesson on platforms like teachers
39:30
pay teachers for stuff like
39:31
workbooks and infographics and that sort
39:33
of thing so ten dollars
39:35
from the people we've interviewed is
39:37
actually very very reasonable
39:39
we have three revenue targets in the
39:41
first three months we're confident that
39:43
we can bootstrap to over a thousand
39:44
teachers
39:45
and reach a million dollars in run rate
39:47
by mid-2022
39:48
this is only taking into consideration a
39:50
10 subscription fee
39:52
with 10 conversion and not turning on
39:54
any other revenue streams
39:56
with data or more developed product
39:57
offerings
39:59
this is where we're starting in
40:01
australian schools and within 12 months
40:03
we want to be global
40:04
operating in the us and uk but this
40:07
is just the start for us our product
40:10
uses 98
40:12
less data than our competitors because
40:14
we use vector-based
40:15
animation this means that we can
40:18
grow into the emerging economies like
40:21
indonesia
40:22
in india and uh africa we actually
40:25
already have signed a school in
40:26
indonesia
40:27
this means that our products can be in
40:30
the hands of the other
40:31
two-thirds of the world's school
40:33
population who still have limited access
40:35
to internet
40:36
because they're in a 2g network
40:39
we want to be everywhere that people
40:41
learn
40:42
picture this tool being used in hr
40:44
onboarding in the boardroom
40:46
in commercial communications we really
40:49
like we really like this use case as
40:51
well
40:52
i believe we're the team to do this i
40:55
felt this problem
40:56
uh before i worked in finance i worked
40:58
in a school as a design assistant plus
41:00
i've seen my mom have this problem
41:02
um i this is jake he
41:06
uh we went to the same school together
41:07
but right now he's in san francisco
41:09
working as an engineer at whatsapp prior
41:11
to that he was at facebook
41:12
and he scaled an edtech app to over 10
41:15
000 monthly active users
41:18
we want to build a library of content
41:21
that teachers can
41:22
share around the world we believe that
41:25
teachers in australia can share snacks
41:27
with teachers in the us uk all around
41:29
the world
41:30
fifteen thousand dollars of prize money
41:32
will help us establish these
41:33
word-of-mouth
41:34
channels and build a scalable customer
41:35
acquisition strategy that we can boost
41:37
later in the year
41:40
we learn through conversation by asking
41:43
questions
41:44
and by making mistakes we want to
41:46
emulate this
41:47
online for everybody thank you
42:02
um in terms of the um bits um that
42:05
you'll be sharing it will there be a
42:06
moderator or someone checking the the
42:08
content from your site to make sure that
42:10
it's all appropriate yeah
42:11
sure so we do uh speech to text
42:14
on every single one because they're
42:15
voice recordings it's really high
42:17
quality
42:17
pieces of data so we can moderate that
42:19
from a back end but we also
42:21
like kahoot and like platforms that are
42:23
already successful they use kind of
42:25
user mode user moderated kind of you can
42:27
report content and that sort of thing
42:30
but there are models where you know they
42:32
don't even they don't do any back-end
42:33
stuff
42:34
we have that back-end element because of
42:35
the transcription service that we can
42:37
provide
42:38
um i hope that provides some clarity
42:39
around the moderation
42:41
of it in terms of the sweet spot of the
42:44
length of the snack
42:46
what is it i mean how yeah how snacky is
42:48
it so so people have come up to us
42:50
before and said
42:51
you know where the tick tock for
42:52
teachers this um
42:54
we've shown our product to teachers and
42:56
they basically say like they get really
42:58
excited because this is how
43:00
people are connecting with their
43:01
students the best in a non-education
43:04
context
43:04
but teachers don't want to send their
43:06
students to tick-tock
43:08
and to all these other platforms because
43:09
they just get distracted it's it's
43:11
obvious but we're going to replicate
43:13
that method of communication in an
43:15
educational context
43:16
and that not only uh is exciting for
43:18
students it's exciting for teachers as
43:20
well
43:22
so so just as a corollary to that
43:25
you know from a student's perspective
43:27
how long is a snack session going to be
43:29
yeah so so snacks are broken down into
43:32
bytes bytes are limited to 60 seconds
43:34
so there's no limit on you can do one
43:36
bite or you can do five bytes
43:38
but it's going to be sort of a between
43:40
one minute and five minute or ten minute
43:42
video depending on what the teacher
43:43
likes
43:45
you spoke about um content so um
43:49
snack is that just the median and the
43:51
channel so
43:52
using an example if the teacher wants to
43:54
teach geography right yep it seems like
43:56
very clearly it gives them the means to
43:58
teach
43:58
concepts of geography you don't actually
44:00
address the the context of geography
44:03
right so you don't give
44:04
key themes or calculus you don't have
44:06
the syllabus within
44:08
it right it's just the means um i'm not
44:10
sure i
44:11
quite understand we're providing
44:12
templates okay um so that's part of
44:14
those assets that you can buy with a
44:16
subscription
44:17
um that template might look like how to
44:20
best explain a geography concept
44:22
or it might be how to how to best from
44:25
pedagogy from from educational studies
44:28
how you can best describe
44:29
something you introduce a topic you you
44:32
give some examples
44:33
you get a student to apply that you know
44:35
there are theoretical
44:36
ways that we can template this and give
44:38
it to a teacher wrapped up in a
44:40
beautiful little simple package
44:41
fantastic thank you thanks
44:59
hi my name's rob i'm the ceo of vr
45:02
realms and the father of a nine-year-old
45:04
gamer can i quickly just get a show of
45:06
hands who in the audience has
45:08
uh primary school-aged children in their
45:10
family
45:12
yep so a few of you you probably know
45:14
they all play online games
45:16
how many of you worry about the online
45:17
games they play
45:19
well i worry about that too and that's
45:20
why i want to talk to you about neo2045
45:23
the digital playground the digital
45:25
playground for kids with peace of mind
45:27
for parents
45:28
and small technical issues
45:32
so we're a team of video game veterans
45:35
my co-founder and i are both disney
45:36
alumni
45:38
between us we've got over 25 years of
45:40
games industry experience
45:43
i spent five of those years at the walt
45:45
disney company running the online games
45:47
division across
45:48
asia pacific which also included this
45:50
game
45:51
club penguin it was a massively
45:54
multiplayer online game for kids
45:56
otherwise known as an mmo the massive
45:58
part comes from the fact that there's
46:00
hundreds or thousands of
46:01
users playing together simultaneously in
46:04
one game
46:05
instance this simple game at its peak
46:08
captured the attention of over 300
46:11
million kids worldwide
46:14
fast forward to today and you might
46:16
recognize some of the names vying for
46:18
the attention of under 13s
46:20
these games are all great however they
46:23
all have
46:24
fundamental shortfalls against our
46:26
product
46:27
minecraft has a multiplayer limit of 30
46:29
users
46:31
fortnite has a t15 rating because of the
46:33
level of in-game violence
46:35
and roblox is facing increasing
46:37
moderation difficulties around their
46:39
content because of the over 500
46:41
independent third-party developers on
46:43
the platform
46:45
the common problem with all of these
46:46
products is that they weren't
46:48
specifically built for kids like club
46:50
penguin
46:54
this is neo it's our future themed mmo
46:57
for kids
46:57
it takes the best bits of minecraft
46:59
roblox and fortnite
47:01
and combines them with new innovation
47:03
into one giant metaverse
47:06
we're really thrilled about what we've
47:08
built and we know the kids are going to
47:09
love it
47:11
after escaping our after escaping our
47:14
nemesis lasertron our players find
47:16
themselves on the planet neo
47:18
here they must explore and defend their
47:20
new home world but there's always time
47:22
for fun and adventure
47:25
neo gives kids the play patterns they
47:27
love through social
47:29
creative and competitive play it also
47:31
gives them portability which means that
47:33
all of their progress
47:34
and their items go through the world
47:36
with them as well as across devices
47:39
parents benefit from having their kids
47:41
in a moderated environment
47:43
where they can set parental controls
47:45
specifically for each child
47:47
and set spending limits to to prevent
47:49
any
47:50
unfortunate accidents like the time my
47:52
child racked up a 50
47:54
bill on crossy road
47:58
so we're using a tried and tested
47:59
business model velvet rope business
48:01
model
48:02
uh it's used by the likes of penguin
48:04
fortnite and
48:05
and roblox neo is free to play
48:09
so kids can enhance their experience
48:11
with in-game content
48:13
and that can be purchased through sachet
48:15
currency purchases or
48:17
a monthly subscription which makes
48:18
spending predictable and easy for
48:20
parents
48:23
the video game industry is huge and
48:26
right now it's currently larger than the
48:27
north american sports
48:29
and the global box office combined
48:32
mobile and online games in particular
48:35
are seeing huge growth
48:36
um driven largely by current leaps in
48:39
technology connectivity
48:41
and reduced device costs
48:44
we've got a global audience and we
48:46
estimate our town at over 500
48:48
million kids in industrialized nations
48:50
aged 7 to 13.
48:52
those of you with kids in that
48:54
demographic know they're probably
48:55
increasingly difficult to reach through
48:57
traditional channels
48:58
youtube however continues to buck this
49:01
trend
49:02
we're working with content creators on
49:04
the platform
49:06
to in to to spread the word of neo and
49:08
bring kids onto neo
49:11
word of mouth is important for us as
49:13
well and that's whether it's in the
49:15
schoolyard
49:16
or homeschooling we've built a tool that
49:19
incentivizes players to invite their
49:21
friends
49:21
and family to neo
49:25
we're entering open beta in march and
49:27
launching onto tablet and pc
49:29
in april and we'll continue the rollout
49:31
across the rest of our platforms through
49:33
the
49:33
rest of 2021.
49:36
last year we bootstrapped our way to
49:38
bring the product to alpha
49:40
we began phase one this year by closing
49:43
a one million dollar pre-seed round
49:46
phase two we expect to reach break even
49:48
and we'll raise again
49:49
to further test and optimize our funnels
49:53
in phase three we expect to have reached
49:55
product market fit and will raise once
49:57
more
49:57
in order to really put our foot on the
49:59
gas and and
50:00
hopefully kick-start that hockey stick
50:05
so the team are working furiously
50:06
towards launch right now
50:08
and personally i'd love to take home an
50:10
award today but
50:12
importantly if any of you have kids in
50:14
our demographic we would love it if you
50:16
could head to the website and sign them
50:18
up for the beta test of neo2045
50:21
the digital playground for kids with
50:22
peace of mind for parents
50:32
i'll lead off with the first question in
50:33
terms of
50:35
ethics where are the boundaries as to
50:38
what's appropriate for children and i
50:40
ask within you know the the sort of
50:42
context of
50:44
you know paid subscriptions and then say
50:46
loot boxes
50:48
yep so we don't do any loot boxes um
50:51
because we clearly don't want to do
50:53
anything that's related to gambling
50:55
um but also we have made the game so
50:58
that there's no actual
50:59
um for kids there's no progressive
51:02
benefit from
51:03
having the items so all of the items are
51:05
aesthetics
51:06
and don't actually impact your
51:08
progression in game so
51:10
it's not a pay-to-play product is a good
51:12
way to describe it
51:14
rob how did you come up with the revenue
51:15
model 70 a month is pretty high
51:18
no no it's not per month that's the
51:19
lifetime value of a subscriber
51:21
so it's actually eight dollars
51:22
australian a month right okay
51:26
okay that's good then yeah we're
51:30
we're expecting them to stay it's better
51:32
than seventy dollars it is it is
51:34
although it's been done before um we're
51:36
expecting them to uh to stay subscribed
51:38
for
51:38
nine months on average gotcha okay
51:44
what's your target age group in terms of
51:46
the children you're
51:47
you're looking at what's your sweet spot
51:49
and sorry well 7-13 is the broad
51:51
demo but we've aged the product up
51:53
because it's easier to bring the kids up
51:55
than it is to bring kids down obviously
51:56
with content
51:57
and um is there a multiplayer limit
52:00
because
52:01
we can have a thousand players
52:02
simultaneously in one
52:04
game instance which is basically one
52:06
server and then we can just duplicate
52:07
that as many times as we need to
52:10
we're currently built for 100 million
52:12
players simultaneously
52:16
quick super quick question how do you
52:18
screen who jumps into the game
52:20
well we can't and there is no way
52:22
because you could be a dog on the
52:24
internet right it's the the classic
52:25
trope
52:26
um but what we do is put in filtering
52:29
so we run many games run black filters
52:32
which means that we
52:33
if we don't want you to say the word dog
52:36
we put that into the filter and you
52:38
can't type dog but if you put a zero
52:40
instead of an o
52:41
you can type dog so what we do is we
52:42
have a black filter and then we have a
52:44
white filter which is basically a
52:45
dictionary of words that we let you say
52:47
in game
52:47
and then on top of that we run ai with
52:49
phrase filtering so it actually looks
52:50
for the combination of
52:52
words together that might cause a
52:54
problem and then it flags it
52:55
automatically to the moderators
53:01
thank you
53:42
[Music]
54:05
now tell me did that make your heart
54:07
smile just as much as mine
54:09
hi everyone i'm elaine nasa and this
54:12
is the kick academy just as those kiddos
54:15
mentioned
54:16
i'm also the founder which i am the
54:18
founder of
54:19
i am also a software engineer and
54:21
despite my education
54:24
i had to teach myself how to code now 15
54:27
years on
54:28
this is still a problem within schools
54:31
our teachers are struggling to educate
54:33
our children stem based subjects
54:35
that's science tech engineering and
54:37
maths
54:38
in our primary schools the teachers
54:40
don't have the knowledge
54:42
and they have kids in the in the
54:44
classrooms if they have the budget but
54:46
it's sitting there collecting
54:47
dust because they just don't know how to
54:49
use them
54:50
as for high schools one in eight classes
54:52
are being taught by out-of-field
54:54
teachers
54:55
so this means we've got pe teachers
54:57
trying to deliver robotics classes and
54:59
it makes absolutely no sense to me
55:03
now the government has picked up on this
55:05
issue as well as
55:06
the growth of stem-based jobs outgrowing
55:10
the non-stem-based jobs by a
55:11
1.6 rate and they're trying to
55:15
fix filling this gap by throwing funding
55:18
but it's just not making up a
55:19
big enough dent and it's impacting 3.9
55:24
million australian students
55:26
across nine and a half thousand schools
55:28
so something really has to be done here
55:30
and at the geek academy we're passionate
55:33
about creating tomorrow's innovators
55:34
today
55:35
and we want to do this by empowering
55:37
educators with stem skills and knowledge
55:39
so that we can unleash our children's
55:41
full potential
55:43
so how did we go about doing this well
55:46
on our way to tackling that bigger
55:47
picture in the schools
55:49
we thought we'd set up two in-person
55:51
lego robotic and coding camps
55:53
but in actual fact we ended up
55:56
selling out five with a total of 58
55:58
children
56:00
and we did this with a 60 profit margin
56:02
from the get-go
56:03
as well as starting to sell out some of
56:06
our weekly courses
56:09
we did this organically by utilizing the
56:12
parent
56:13
whatsapp channels as well as posting on
56:16
instagram and facebook
56:18
and we're currently in the middle of
56:19
approaching schools direct so that we
56:21
can use their parent teacher channels
56:23
as well as creating paid campaigns
56:25
through social media and google
56:27
and we'll also be engaging with
56:29
influencers
56:31
as for our competitors there's a couple
56:33
of things that they
56:35
that they're missing with their
56:37
educators some of them do not have that
56:39
formal education or
56:40
experience they also have a very large
56:42
teacher-student class size ratio
56:44
some of them are averaging one teacher
56:47
to every 10 students
56:48
whereas we cap it as at six students for
56:51
every teacher
56:52
their content is also not of a high
56:54
syllabus standard and it's not very
56:56
engaging
56:57
but above all they are not they are not
56:59
there to scale at an in
57:02
with an impact at a national school
57:03
level
57:06
so what are we offering well we we have
57:08
a multi-revenue stream
57:10
business that scales with that impact
57:13
as you saw in our intro video we have
57:16
our holiday holiday camp set up
57:18
where children between the ages of 4 and
57:19
18 years of age
57:21
come for a full day of fun to learn stem
57:23
and that's for 195
57:25
a day we are currently in the middle of
57:28
setting up
57:29
our weekly weekly courses and selling
57:31
them
57:32
and this is where students come for an
57:34
hour a week over a 10-week course
57:36
that aligns with the school term and
57:38
that costs 350 dollars
57:41
so as we scale both the holiday camps
57:43
and the courses
57:44
and learn what we can use to
57:48
to create a solution for the bigger
57:49
picture being the the schools
57:51
we will embed that solution into our
57:54
into a school program
57:57
as for our next steps over the next five
58:00
months
58:00
we want to fill up that first location
58:03
with 80 students
58:04
in the weekly course and 120
58:08
students in the holiday program that
58:10
will place us
58:11
in a quarter revenue of just under 52
58:14
000 as for three years time we want to
58:18
have 20 locations filled up
58:20
and that will be gen that will equate to
58:24
3.3 million dollars in revenue
58:27
also over the 18 months we want to be
58:30
able to
58:31
grab those solutions that we we um we
58:33
put together through
58:35
those two other programs and embed them
58:38
in the school so that we can continue
58:40
developing our future leaders
58:43
so who are we we are geeks again i'm
58:46
elaine founder and geek coach
58:48
at the geek academy i have over 15 years
58:51
experience in the industry unlike some
58:53
of our competitors
58:55
specifically in advanced manufacturing
58:57
and legal technology
58:59
and my life's mission is to empower
59:01
young minds through play
59:02
we also have lauren she's a primary
59:04
school teacher
59:05
and she's very passionate about
59:07
unleashing the full learning potential
59:09
of students she is also certified in
59:11
gifted education and design thinking
59:14
and together we believe we are a dynamic
59:16
duo that can deliver
59:18
the purpose of all of this and
59:21
other than wanting to have more kids on
59:24
board
59:24
we are looking for a co-hustler to
59:27
approach schools
59:28
as well as prize money so we can
59:29
purchase more stem kits
59:31
so we can grow our geek squad of kids so
59:34
please jump on board and help us create
59:36
tomorrow's innovators today
59:38
[Applause]
59:44
questions
59:52
um firstly thank you i think getting
59:54
into schools is a fantastic idea
59:56
um have you sort of explored what are
59:58
the hurdles of potentially getting into
60:00
schools rather than sort of running
60:01
before or holiday care are there any
60:03
so with so with schools there's the the
60:06
two avenues there's
60:07
going in there as incursions where you
60:09
go in and just teach the kids direct
60:12
that's quite simple there's no it's not
60:14
too difficult
60:15
because it's actually the teachers who
60:17
book in those incursions
60:19
so yeah no issue there uh but
60:22
the the bigger picture where we want to
60:24
actually educate the the teachers
60:26
that's yet to be explored but we have
60:29
spoken to quite a few teachers and
60:31
a lot of them are already waiting for us
60:32
to to book in those incursions
60:34
so exciting times ahead
60:38
yes just understand your product
60:41
offering and how you're differentiating
60:43
it
60:43
are you offering a different way of
60:46
learning
60:47
stem or are you changing
60:50
you know adding to the syllabus or
60:52
enhancing the content
60:54
so is it method or content uh both
60:57
so the whole design thinking process is
61:00
implemented with how we deliver the stem
61:02
education
61:03
which we find engages children a lot
61:05
more than
61:06
other stem yeah other competitors that
61:09
are out there some are doing that as
61:10
well
61:11
but we are again in saying all of this
61:14
we are
61:15
utilizing those two areas so that we can
61:17
also tackle that bigger picture
61:20
i hope that answers your question yeah
61:22
thanks
61:23
thank you
61:27
how do you go about managing
61:30
behavioral challenges with children um
61:33
who may
61:34
yeah you know impact the the experience
61:36
of others
61:37
yeah absolutely so we had uh in those
61:40
classes that we ran in the january
61:42
holidays um
61:44
the parents actually didn't give us a
61:45
heads up on on some behavioral
61:48
uh issues that the children had but
61:51
that's why we've got
61:52
the whole expert in stem plus teacher
61:55
model so that way the teacher we had
61:57
lauren
61:58
there she was able to quickly tackle
62:00
that on so she's
62:02
with her primary her full-time job at
62:04
school
62:05
she handles these kids on a daily basis
62:08
and she
62:08
yeah she's great at it so that's the
62:11
whole dynamic duo that
62:13
we want to continue
62:32
so
62:40
g'day my name's ben kennedy and i'm the
62:42
founder and ceo of gecko
62:44
gecko is a marketplace to help people
62:46
hire event items easily
62:48
and securely now before we start i want
62:50
to introduce you
62:51
to my friend josh who is gekko's first
62:54
ever customer
62:55
josh was having a 21st birthday party
62:57
and needed to hire speakers
62:59
lights and a microphone however
63:02
unfortunately
63:02
he came up with a few snags on his way
63:04
there there was no security on
63:07
classified advertising platforms such as
63:09
facebook marketplace and gumtree
63:11
brick and mortar stores are only in one
63:13
location which makes it super difficult
63:15
since he lives so far away from most of
63:17
them
63:18
they don't have everything you need in
63:20
one place you have microphones over here
63:23
speakers over there which makes it
63:24
incredibly difficult and finally
63:26
it's super difficult to book out he was
63:29
calling
63:30
people at 4pm on a friday and no one was
63:32
answering
63:33
so he reached out to us and we were and
63:36
we reached out to louis
63:38
louis is a reputable dj who i've known
63:40
for years
63:41
and not only that but he lives just down
63:43
the road from where josh does
63:45
the two linked up and josh ended up
63:47
having the best night of his life
63:49
now why was this better because it was
63:51
secure
63:52
he had all the items in one place and
63:55
closed for pick up
63:56
he was able to make a secure online
63:58
payment quickly
64:00
all whilst being cheaper but how does
64:02
this work
64:04
josh goes on to gecko.rent and looks for
64:06
the items that he needs
64:08
he chooses the items and pays a bond and
64:11
books it out
64:12
louie is notified of the booking and
64:13
they both get each other's contact
64:15
details
64:16
josh picks up the items has a great time
64:19
and returns them back to louie and once
64:22
louis says that it's given back in the
64:23
same condition that it was
64:24
given to josh the bond is then refunded
64:29
the community to community lending
64:30
economy will be worth 92 billion dollars
64:33
globally
64:34
by 2025. the p2p event lending economy
64:37
in australia
64:38
is going to be worth 676 million dollars
64:41
and we want to take all of it
64:43
and as a result that's 30 percent of our
64:46
margins
64:46
to quote murray herbs sounds ambitious
64:49
because it is
64:52
we have overseas validation through fat
64:55
llama which is a y
64:56
combinator alumni and have raised 13
64:58
million dollars
65:00
we have grover over in germany that's
65:01
raised 362 million dollars
65:04
and we have peer buy in the netherlands
65:06
which has raised 4.7 million dollars
65:08
and the key differences here is that
65:10
both peer by and fat llama
65:12
are very broad and they don't have a
65:14
strong vertical
65:15
which hurts them in their go-to-market
65:16
strategies then grover is more long-term
65:19
oriented
65:20
and it's mainly limited to electronics
65:22
by itself
65:24
we take 20 from the lender 5 from
65:27
businesses
65:27
and then 10 from the borrower we also
65:30
have delivery fees as we found
65:32
that our customers are prepared to pay a
65:34
premium for the added element of
65:36
convenience
65:37
we focus on customer success to generate
65:40
referrals
65:40
we make sure that every single listing
65:43
on the platform has the best chance of
65:45
getting hired out
65:46
we directly target users of other
65:48
successful marketplaces with high
65:50
liquidity
65:51
and then send them back to gecko and for
65:53
every one dollar that we put into this
65:54
we get ten dollars back we have
65:57
exclusive partnerships with suppliers to
65:59
enhance our distribution
66:01
one client with 600 sales will generate
66:04
us 10
66:05
000 in revenue alone and we already have
66:08
six of these
66:10
we also have search engine optimization
66:12
which has been used by the likes of air
66:14
tasker airbnb
66:15
and mad paws so it's proven to work
66:20
we have four hundred thousand dollars in
66:22
partnership gmv
66:23
and that's without us having to do
66:25
anything we have two and a half thousand
66:27
listings on the platform and 287 sales
66:30
that we're making daily
66:32
and that's not even the most exciting
66:33
part we're going ten percent
66:35
week on week which is five percent more
66:38
than what y combinator asks from their
66:39
startups in their world famous
66:40
accelerator program
66:42
the team consists of myself a uts
66:44
hustler year award winner
66:46
so you know i work hard we have alan ung
66:48
who has a successful exit under his belt
66:50
after they sold out to gearbest which is
66:52
an alibaba competitor
66:54
and we have lao birch who founded his
66:56
own creative agency
66:58
we also have some awesome advisors and
67:00
investors we have chris
67:01
sard who is the ex-head of product at
67:03
uber we have karim muabi who is able to
67:06
give us step-by-step guidance on our go
67:08
to market strategy
67:09
and jack ian horne who has created a one
67:11
billion australian dollar
67:13
company over in the states since our
67:16
launch in september 2019 we've almost
67:19
made 300 hires and we will do that by
67:21
the end of the month
67:23
following this we're looking at ipo when
67:24
we make 100 million hires across the
67:26
globe
67:27
by 2031. so
67:30
geck around us we're raising eight
67:32
hundred thousand dollars but we're not
67:33
looking for just anyone
67:35
we're looking for experienced angel
67:37
investors and vcs
67:38
that know when what to do when it comes
67:40
to marketplaces
67:41
so if this is you or someone you know
67:43
please feel free
67:44
to get in touch
67:47
[Applause]
67:54
i might go first uh it sounds fantastic
67:56
i've got a party tomorrow night i've
67:58
just gone through that whole hassle
67:59
um and you set up a scenario where you
68:02
said
68:02
you've got you need things from
68:04
different suppliers
68:06
lighting music whatever um
68:09
and then you said you knew a reputable
68:11
guy who you trusted who was close to the
68:14
you know to the source so you um didn't
68:17
rely on the technology related
68:19
relied on your personal intel
68:22
how do you how do you create that
68:25
digitally
68:26
where it's not from one supplier
68:27
necessarily because the lights are
68:29
separate from the
68:30
microphone so i've got various suppliers
68:33
and also
68:34
make the decision because when i went
68:35
online and did my own
68:37
research individually i had to do some
68:39
sort of i had to have some sort i would
68:41
have loved to star rating
68:42
and i would have um but i also need to
68:44
find out where they are and what they
68:46
have like how
68:46
how does your your marketplace
68:49
accommodate for all of those parts of
68:50
the decision-making process yeah awesome
68:52
so number one we do have a two two-way
68:55
rating system
68:56
um first of all and second of all
68:58
because we're partnering with
69:00
these businesses first up we know
69:03
as a result of you know them having
69:05
multiple sort of
69:06
um customers in the past that these are
69:08
the people that we can trust
69:10
and that's how we're going to facilitate
69:11
trust within the platform is by
69:13
be piggybacking off these um of these
69:16
exclusive partnerships
69:18
um and that's i guess how we're going to
69:19
grow and scale so
69:21
to answer your question yeah it's going
69:22
to be a very similar model to your
69:23
airbnbs and your air taskers through the
69:25
through the two-way rating system and
69:26
that's how we're going to establish
69:27
trust so if i need things from
69:30
different suppliers i'll just create a
69:32
contract with each of them separately so
69:34
my lights will come separately from my
69:37
music thing you can do that but the
69:38
whole idea is that you do just get it
69:40
from from one source yeah
69:42
okay to make it just easier for the car
69:44
awesome thank you
69:49
just in terms of your partners um
69:53
who are some examples of them yeah yeah
69:55
cool and
69:57
why would they be willing to put at risk
70:00
the sort of hard work that they've done
70:02
in terms of building up their brand
70:05
um in terms of doing business with a
70:07
with a startup
70:08
yeah fair enough um so number one we
70:10
have fancy that and snog the frog which
70:12
are the two industry leaders for costume
70:14
hire
70:15
in sydney um we also have buzz speaker
70:17
higher um
70:18
vibes walk smart and av higher as well
70:21
so the i guess the the main reason is
70:23
because their current solutions aren't
70:24
good enough they don't have
70:26
you know security within their platform
70:28
and their websites to be quite honest
70:30
with you
70:30
are a bit shonky because they're built
70:32
off shopify or woocommerce but they're
70:34
not made
70:35
for a rental business they're made for
70:37
you know a buy sell business
70:39
so that's the the main problem that
70:42
we're solving with these businesses
70:44
is that they don't have a solution to
70:46
this problem we're able to just white
70:47
label a solution through the marketplace
71:19
so before we start today i'd just like
71:21
you all to cast yourselves back
71:23
to puberty pimples stress of upcoming
71:26
assessments exams around the corner
71:29
and school uniforms don't you love high
71:31
school
71:32
so to dive a bit deeper into the
71:35
pressures and stresses of high school
71:36
let's look to matthew
71:38
he's a year 10 student who's fallen
71:39
behind in maths and english
71:41
he he's he's struggling and his mother
71:45
tries the best she can
71:46
but as a single parent of two boys
71:48
escaping a domestic violence situation
71:51
she's struggling she wishes she could
71:53
send the boys to tutoring but she can't
71:54
manage it financially
71:56
and matthew just recently told his mum
71:58
that he feels dumb
72:00
what does she do now and matthew's not
72:02
alone
72:03
as 27 of young people in new south wales
72:06
did not complete year 12 or equivalent
72:08
studies
72:09
and studies have shown that
72:10
socioeconomic status plays an
72:12
unacceptably large role
72:13
in determining a student's achievements
72:15
and overall educational outcomes
72:18
and covett is worse than this problem
72:20
with calls to the reading and writing
72:21
hotline in new south wales spiking 30
72:24
last year being a third of which being
72:26
parents
72:27
desperate to figure out how to help
72:28
their kids with their homework
72:30
the kids helpline has also seen a 14.3
72:33
increase in calls last year
72:35
that's 32 000 young people reaching out
72:37
for support
72:39
so what can be done that's why we exist
72:42
we we support young people who struggle
72:44
in school or life with free tutoring
72:47
one creative mind at a time
72:50
and we've been striving to fulfill this
72:52
vision since 2016
72:54
as we believe all young people who need
72:56
support should get it
72:57
we started with a pilot program with the
72:59
naronbone behavioral school
73:01
and moved into a mixed medium approach
73:03
of both online tutoring and face-to-face
73:06
but you may be wondering what else is
73:08
out there and there are similar
73:09
organizations that provide free tutoring
73:10
for disadvantaged young people
73:12
like foster the future and teach learn
73:14
grow but they only provide support for
73:16
smaller segments of the overall cohort
73:18
of disadvantaged young people
73:19
like rural and remote students for
73:21
foster kids
73:22
the smith family also provides a
73:24
homework help initiative that they
73:25
provide
73:26
out of certain schools but again it's
73:28
face to face
73:29
not online and so not all students can
73:31
access it
73:33
and through our program we've seen some
73:35
great results matthew ended up finding
73:37
our tutor amy who like his mother said
73:39
bolstered not only his results but also
73:41
his self-confidence
73:42
which is a massive milestone we've
73:45
supported 50 students
73:47
experiencing some level of disadvantage
73:49
with 400 hours of support
73:51
and that's 250 tutoring sessions a lot
73:53
of which started on zoom
73:54
which is pretty clunky as everyone knows
73:58
so i've seen students grow
74:01
i've seen them graduate go from failing
74:04
to excelling and seeing some amazing
74:06
amazing creative talents flourish
74:08
through a lot of our different programs
74:09
that we offer
74:10
but as all of our students are different
74:12
the way they interact with us
74:14
kind of follows the same theme we're a
74:16
referral based organization
74:18
so we get our students from doctors
74:20
psychologists counselors and schools
74:23
and once a student becomes a member of
74:25
youth in motion they begin a trial
74:26
session with any one of our tutors
74:28
and that's just so they can feel out if
74:30
they gel with them if they can work well
74:31
together
74:32
and if not totally cool let's move on to
74:34
the next one we also have a
74:36
tailored youth in motion youth worker to
74:37
ensure that all kids feel safe and
74:39
secure in an online capacity then
74:42
once they find that tutor that they
74:43
click with we move into weekly tutoring
74:45
sessions for one to two hours a week
74:47
and our students stay with us for
74:48
roughly two years
74:50
so as a completely volunteer-run
74:52
non-profit organization
74:54
we rely on donations and small grants to
74:57
stay afloat
74:58
we only received around 700 last year
75:01
but we're on track this year to receive
75:02
2.5 000 in communi a small community
75:06
grant to
75:06
ensure that we move into the online
75:08
tutoring space more effectively
75:10
but moving forward we have our eyes set
75:12
on expansion to the greater sydney
75:14
region and eventually all of new south
75:16
wales
75:16
and and to get there we'd love to
75:18
partner with corporates who have an
75:20
interest in education
75:21
to meet their social corporate
75:22
responsibility targets and
75:24
moving into a face-to-face paid option
75:28
with youth services like headspace or
75:31
services like chatswood youth center
75:34
so like i said we're completely
75:36
volunteer run
75:38
so we went with lack of funding so we
75:40
can only provide 15 hours of support
75:42
each week for
75:43
10 students but even though i'm terrible
75:46
at math i did the math correctly and we
75:48
can provide
75:49
180 hours of support every week for 120
75:52
students which is
75:53
a massive increase of support and in
75:56
order to get there
75:56
if i was to win a prize today we would
75:59
invest
76:00
in creating more sustainable fundraising
76:03
for our organization like hiring a grant
76:05
writer
76:07
a sales a sales coach so that i can be
76:09
like james and pitch my startup to to
76:11
more people
76:13
and if anyone has any connections to
76:14
headspace or similarly mental health
76:16
organizations we could partner with
76:18
that would be amazing or connections to
76:20
the telstra foundation would be cool
76:22
um or other corporates that have a focus
76:24
in education and supporting
76:26
disadvantaged young people
76:28
moving forward so thank you so much
76:38
could you just um go through the slide
76:41
um that talks about the referral process
76:43
and i was kind of wondering
76:45
as i was looking at it when a young
76:47
person seeks help
76:49
how often are they going to their gp or
76:51
psychologist i mean how
76:53
is is that kind of a bit of a bottleneck
76:55
well they definitely
76:56
would reach out to their parents or
76:58
their mom who would then
76:59
take them to that next step a lot of our
77:01
referrals come from
77:03
um like catholic care where the parents
77:06
are already receiving care being in
77:07
domestic violence situations or that
77:09
kind of thing and so they refer their
77:10
students on
77:11
because they know that those kids need
77:12
further support yeah
77:19
it looked like your solution is in some
77:21
ways complementary with say the smith
77:22
family
77:23
yeah is that an opportunity to partner
77:25
with him i mean we would we would love
77:27
that
77:27
as an opportunity for sure okay
77:35
yeah i know i was thinking about
77:36
partnerships as well i mean are there
77:38
are there key aspects of potential
77:40
partners that you think would be really
77:42
interesting for you
77:43
um there's an organisation which is
77:46
providing mentors for children which is
77:48
adverse advertising a lot on television
77:50
at the moment and stone just escapes me
77:52
but
77:52
you know are there are the particular
77:54
criteria that you'd be looking for
77:56
um we have we have certain ethics that
77:58
we love to adhere to when
78:00
receiving funding but with partnerships
78:01
we we follow that same
78:03
ethics if they're committed to serving
78:06
disadvantaged young people then we're
78:08
totally happy to connect um we love we
78:11
love batir
78:12
we we've connected with them and done
78:14
webinars with them
78:15
um and we we love supporting young
78:18
people with mental health as well
78:20
so we just held a webinar focusing on
78:22
both hsc study skills and ultimate
78:23
enslow mental health
78:25
so connecting with organizations and in
78:26
that sphere also we would love to do
78:30
it's just getting the ball rolling it's
78:32
a competitive space getting volunteers
78:34
as well how are you going with that in
78:35
terms of differentiation
78:37
it's actually been amazing um i recently
78:40
hired well
78:41
hired volunteers um around
78:44
seven and i did 17 interviews the week
78:47
before
78:47
i had to close applications because i
78:49
had like over a hundred for a couple
78:51
positions it
78:52
it's a really amazing space especially
78:54
with clovid everyone wants to pitch in
78:55
and help out so
78:56
it's great thank you
79:35
okay hi everyone my name is stephen and
79:37
i'm a co-founder of microgenesis
79:40
microgenesis is a medical device startup
79:42
developing technology to improve the
79:44
reliability
79:45
and efficiency of fertility treatments
79:49
according to the who one in every six
79:52
couples
79:53
are infertile one in every six
79:59
no sorry i lost one in every six couples
80:03
are infertile and although the onus of
80:05
infertility has historically fallen on
80:07
women
80:08
i'm here to tell you that this is not
80:10
the case in fact over 55 percent of the
80:13
time
80:13
infertility involves a male factor yet
80:16
the way we treat male
80:18
infertility has undergone almost no
80:20
technical innovation
80:21
since the 1980s ivf has helped
80:25
millions of couples worldwide achieve a
80:27
family
80:29
and an essential part in all ivf
80:31
treatments is sperm
80:33
selection yet current sperm selection
80:35
technology is
80:36
fundamentally flawed techniques such as
80:39
density gradient centrifugation
80:41
apply huge mechanical forces over 900
80:44
g's of force
80:45
that can damage the dna of a sperm cell
80:50
what this means is lower quality sperm
80:53
selection which directly contributes
80:55
to lower embryo quality lower
80:57
implantation rates
80:59
and a higher chance of miscarriage in
81:01
fact studies have shown
81:02
that poor quality sperm selection can
81:04
more than double
81:06
your chance of a miscarriage
81:09
what's more conventional sperm selection
81:11
suffers from
81:13
low throughput is prone to human error
81:15
and has extended labor costs for the
81:17
clinics themselves
81:18
so basically we need to start taking
81:20
better care
81:21
of our sperm and that's where
81:23
microgenesis comes in we're here to do
81:25
just that using our new um
81:28
unique microfluidic technology to
81:30
reframe the way we select sperm cells
81:33
into a safe reliable and efficient
81:36
device
81:36
that we call the iv micro f
81:40
so obviously i can't do a live sperm
81:42
test here today
81:43
but our technology allows our device to
81:47
outperform existing sperm selection
81:49
methods in terms of time
81:50
ease of use and quality
81:53
our device allows clinics to select
81:55
sperm within a sixth of the time
81:58
without compromising their ivf treatment
82:01
our technology uses biologically
82:03
inspired microchannels
82:05
to mimic the environment inside the
82:08
female reproductive tract to select
82:10
sperm
82:10
in a more natural way sperm from our
82:14
device show improved vitality
82:16
motility and dna integrity which are all
82:18
essential components
82:20
in creating a healthy embryo
82:23
so microgenes has already partnered with
82:25
the world's leading ivf service
82:26
providers
82:27
across three different regions so this
82:29
puts us in a good place to distribute
82:31
our device as a single use
82:33
sperm selection chip either directly to
82:35
clinics or through established
82:37
distribution channels our technology is
82:40
grounded in years of fundamental
82:42
research
82:43
and publications into sperm motion and
82:45
selection
82:46
our startup journey began with us
82:48
winning the techcelerator program
82:50
and since then we filed our ip in
82:52
australia and china simultaneously
82:54
we've been busy since then we've
82:56
established five clinical studies which
82:58
are ongoing
82:58
across three different regions
83:01
the ibf consumables market is growing at
83:04
a phenomenal rate as more and more
83:06
couples
83:07
access infertility treatment just last
83:09
year 2.5
83:11
million ivf treatments were provided to
83:14
infertile couples
83:15
and since our device is appropriate for
83:16
all except the most severe forms of
83:18
infertility
83:19
that gives us an addressable market of
83:21
well over 2 million treatments
83:24
this gives us a market projection of
83:25
having a revenue of 35 million dollars
83:28
by 2027 once we get to market
83:31
as we accr acquire more and more clinics
83:33
to use our device
83:36
so for our next round of funding we'll
83:38
put money towards
83:39
our regulatory approval process which
83:41
we've already started as a class to
83:43
a medical device and it will also go
83:46
towards funding our first trial
83:47
manufacturing run which we'll do in
83:48
parallel
83:50
so we built a terrific team around us
83:53
our technical founders
83:54
our collection of biomedical scientists
83:56
with track records in previous medical
83:58
device startups
84:00
our business team have secured billions
84:01
in investment deals in the past
84:03
and our advisors are experts in the
84:04
fields of engineering and reproductive
84:06
health care
84:09
so we need about three million dollars
84:11
to fund our plan for regulatory approval
84:13
and trial manufacturing which will get
84:14
us to market
84:16
then if we win any money today we'll put
84:19
that money towards
84:20
our regulatory approval plan we're also
84:23
looking for collaborators anyone who
84:24
knows
84:25
about the medical device approval
84:27
process or has experience in the ivf
84:29
field even if you've been through ivf
84:31
and you know someone who's been through
84:32
ibf we're looking for stories we want to
84:34
know how
84:34
it was for you so the ivf
84:38
process the ivf success rate has
84:41
stagnated
84:42
it's not getting any better in fact ibs
84:45
success rates are getting slightly worse
84:47
what this means is it puts couples under
84:49
enormous financial
84:51
and emotional strength so
84:54
if you resonate with helping couples
84:57
achieve a family
84:58
help microgenesis bring ivf the
85:01
innovation it desperately needs
85:03
thank you
85:12
um my understanding of the ivs ivf
85:15
business model is one of
85:17
cycles like that's that that's the
85:18
revenue generator right
85:20
um how do you help
85:24
either improve their profitability or
85:27
increase the number of cycles right
85:30
that's a great question
85:31
so it's one to one with our sperm
85:33
selections and cycles so we're
85:35
uh targeting the sperm selection part of
85:37
one ivf cycle
85:39
so the ivf is broken up into multiple
85:41
workflows so our
85:42
add value is in the mail infertility
85:44
treatment side of that which runs in
85:46
parallel to the female side
85:48
so not only are we providing a workflow
85:50
benefit
85:51
a sixth of the time of their
85:52
conventional process which frees up
85:54
their clinicians to do other essential
85:55
processes
85:56
especially on the female side it also
85:58
gives them better quality
86:00
sperm so they can provide a better
86:01
quality treatment they don't have to
86:03
repeat processes make more embryos if
86:06
they have higher quality embryos to
86:08
start with that gives their patients
86:09
more options
86:10
they can freeze those embryos they go
86:12
through less implantations it's less
86:14
stress for the clinic
86:17
clinics being a key part obviously of of
86:20
your product
86:21
how much of a change is it for someone
86:23
to fully adopt
86:24
your new product in clinics is it that's
86:27
the value chain is it
86:28
yeah systems what capex is required
86:30
potentially to actually
86:32
adopt this new way that's that's a great
86:34
question it's pretty minimal
86:36
so at the moment um clinics have
86:38
complicated they have centrifuges and
86:40
they have big units and big
86:41
um spaces for doing their sperm
86:44
selection and we've reduced that down to
86:46
a chip it's about the size of the palm
86:47
of your hand so they don't have to pay
86:49
for the maintenance
86:50
of all this complicated equipment and
86:52
all this time so it's actually a
86:54
reduction in their cost
86:55
to operate and use this device because
86:57
it's a three-step process you don't need
86:59
any technical experience or required
87:02
training
87:03
um is basically inject your sperm wait
87:05
for your sperm collect your sperm
87:07
rather than an 11 step process where
87:09
they have to
87:10
pay attention for the full amount of
87:11
time and any misstep or mishandling in
87:14
the
87:14
manual process could ruin the whole
87:17
sperm selection
87:19
uh just quickly while you've got time
87:20
and two of the big issues in
87:22
the device space are ip and regulatory
87:26
can you just briefly tell us about how
87:28
you're grappling with those
87:29
so for ip we've gone with australia and
87:31
china first
87:33
and once we go through pct and national
87:34
will expand into europe and america
87:36
china being the largest uh market they
87:39
do over a million cycles
87:41
so for for context australia there's 90
87:43
000 cycles or ivf treatments
87:44
china does a million so we saw the
87:47
urgency to get into that market quickly
87:49
and two of our clinical studies are in
87:51
china at the moment with the largest
87:53
service providers of ibf they do 20 to
87:55
30 000
87:56
cycles themselves so that's the ip
88:00
plan on the regulatory side we started
88:02
working with brandwood ckc we did a
88:03
phase one engagement with them we paid
88:05
them to give us a regulatory roadmap
88:08
and do a class analysis for us and
88:10
basically now we've got the full plan we
88:12
know
88:12
the steps that we need to take we've
88:14
already started talking to manufacturers
88:15
we just need
88:16
the funding to go through it thank you
88:19
[Applause]
88:26
very well done that was ladies and
88:28
gentlemen
88:29
the 10th pitch this afternoon so
88:33
my gosh you know is that worth another
88:35
round of a blouse maybe just a it's a
88:37
really big one
88:41
absolutely absolutely stoked by the
88:43
quality of these pictures so thank you
88:45
guys thank you so much
88:47
so what's going to happen now we're
88:48
going to take those judges into our uh
88:50
room when the white smoke comes out and
88:52
you will know that that we have
88:53
determined the winners and uh
88:55
so until then guys i'll have um a little
88:58
panel discussion for you also for you
89:00
guys online so julian marchand was going
89:02
to
89:02
leave that i'll just hand it over to him
89:04
in just a minute judges please
89:06
yeah fill out your latest uh scoring
89:08
sheet send them over there that's great
89:10
and for you in the room please stay in
89:11
the room
89:12
enjoy the panel discussion i think we
89:14
have a bit of a sports review
89:15
kind of uh commentary on the pictures
89:18
that we've seen so i'm really
89:20
uh looking forward to watch that video
89:21
later because i want to see it so
89:23
guys thanks again for being here we'll
89:25
be back in here in probably 20 to 25
89:28
minutes
89:29
to start the awards ceremony and
89:31
announce the winners for the night
89:33
okay thanks very much
89:41
so i'm uh i'm with murray herbs um
89:44
here murray is a director of
89:46
entrepreneurship and
89:47
uh he leads uts startups here at
89:51
uts and we should have ah here we go
89:54
[Applause]
89:57
and now we have pete on the screen on
90:00
the big screen
90:02
can you guys speed on a big screen if we
90:04
can hear him
90:08
and then the rig the the logical uh
90:11
um sentence on zoom is can you unmute
90:14
yourself uh pete
90:18
sorry sorry can you repeat that i
90:21
am or none i have one muted if that's
90:23
your question okay we we can hear you a
90:25
little bit
90:26
uh aaron if you can increase the volume
90:29
okay so well uh well um
90:40
as you can see from a shared in a hidden
90:42
location in canberra
90:44
thank you very much for joining us
90:48
look too closely don't disclose
90:51
yeah yeah and uh and keep your nose nose
90:54
closed fortunately
90:55
we don't have smell-o-vision
91:00
okay all right so let's get started
91:01
before we get into the
91:03
the details of the pitches that we've
91:05
just been um so
91:06
to repeat unto yourself what's the goal
91:10
um that the pitchers need to achieve
91:12
when they go to they have five minutes
91:14
to present
91:14
um what they've been through what's
91:16
what's the goal here
91:18
okay
91:21
firstly can i pass that to the audience
91:25
this audience participation in the chat
91:28
if you
91:28
uh comment in the chat we'll read out as
91:30
well so let's make this interactive
91:33
what did you get from these
91:34
presentations
91:37
what did you get dave i'll throw to you
91:40
if no one jumps in
91:42
huh what did you get
91:50
okay bright future people willing to
91:52
take them through a bit of
91:54
optimism a bit of excitement a bit of
91:57
okay these people kind of know what
91:58
they're talking about
91:59
uh i would like to support those people
92:02
i would like to work for those people i
92:04
would like to invest in those people
92:06
those people are going to be rich
92:07
i want to be a little bit rich with
92:09
those people like
92:10
yeah did we get a bit of that yeah
92:15
oh yeah yeah
92:18
and the rest yeah um
92:22
but uh that's that's i couldn't agree
92:24
more we've got some chats coming through
92:26
but pete
92:27
thank you excitement um emotion
92:31
energy yeah that's what they're looking
92:33
for what do you think
92:38
pete
92:40
mate i think it's i think when you do
92:42
pitching competitions
92:44
you you know i don't think you should
92:47
aim to win
92:48
um in general it depends where you which
92:50
we're pitching but
92:51
but generally what i tell people is look
92:54
at who's out there in the audience
92:57
and try to visualize a person that you
93:00
want to
93:02
you want to impress because everyone has
93:04
their own
93:05
judging criteria honestly the
93:08
anyone who's who studies startups knows
93:12
just how difficult is to predict so so
93:14
rather than try to please everybody
93:17
stick to stick to a particular person
93:21
that you really want to
93:22
impress with um with what you've got to
93:24
offer
93:25
and pitch to them and and you know i've
93:29
seen multiple pitching competitions
93:31
where people have
93:32
gone nowhere in the pitching competition
93:35
and then some
93:36
rich person in the audience or some
93:38
person hiding in the back
93:40
comes up and says i really love your
93:42
idea this is
93:43
i don't think the judges understood this
93:45
we want to we want to invest
93:47
you see so so it's not businesses are
93:50
not necessarily popularity competitions
93:53
and i think it pays to
93:54
stick to what you know and and try to
93:58
impress the people that are most likely
94:00
to be receptive to your message
94:02
i think you have been that rich person
94:04
in the audience in a few of those
94:05
contests
94:07
this sounds familiar you're making a
94:10
list
94:10
yes hands up
94:13
this game all right should we review
94:16
some of the pictures that um we've
94:18
we've been looking at uh one of the the
94:20
first one was uh
94:21
gator serum the like the missing link
94:23
for uh for linkedin
94:25
and the audience um i looked at some of
94:27
the the stats here
94:28
um i was asking them to vote out of out
94:31
of five
94:32
and the majority 65 percent what uh
94:34
voted three
94:35
it's which is uh it's got potential um
94:37
any of you have a take on
94:39
on on that market and that put the
94:40
potential for that startup
94:42
uh it sounds fantastic uh i uh
94:46
uh so firstly let me start by saying i
94:49
have such a bad track record of picking
94:51
companies that will go well
94:52
so everything i say is rubbish and i'm
94:55
becoming more confident in that
94:57
the more i do this kind of thing because
95:00
people change what they do
95:02
and someone can come in and not know a
95:04
particular market or not know
95:06
how they're going to execute on
95:07
something or to run into someone who
95:09
changes what they do
95:11
so many things can change especially
95:13
about people
95:14
that are early in their journey but
95:17
having said that
95:18
it looks amazing as long as linkedin
95:21
doesn't
95:22
decide they want to stop it but i mean
95:24
how long is linkedin going to be around
95:26
there are so many other potential
95:28
disruptors everyone thinks i know
95:30
myspace is going to be here forever
95:32
uh who knows yeah definitely if they do
95:35
something is linkedin decide to do
95:37
something cause they can
95:38
just cut the api but i think the topic
95:40
here as well is
95:41
well now uh sales outreach is on social
95:44
media so how can b2b
95:46
people manage this now it's two days on
95:48
linkedin maybe tomorrow it'll be on
95:50
um tick tock so maybe that's a concept
95:53
what about you pete
95:57
yeah i think i think um i think
96:01
defensibility might be an issue
96:03
um but but you know the the the the
96:05
startup was talking about
96:07
how they might bridge other other
96:10
platforms so so then it becomes a
96:12
question of how much money do you want
96:13
to raise how big your ambition is going
96:15
to be
96:16
um it's def definitely got potential uh
96:19
you know it you you're it's you know
96:22
it's like what elon musk said
96:24
about paypal you're fighting a war on um
96:27
you know on on on the enemy's territory
96:31
as it were and and you're sort of at
96:32
their mercy
96:34
but but things have happened before
96:36
where that's
96:37
where that's worked there may be
96:38
strategic reasons why linkedin like for
96:40
example i think linkedin has a crm
96:42
partnership program for example rather
96:45
than have its own crm
96:47
it considers itself more as a platform
96:49
for other startups so maybe that's a
96:51
defensive
96:52
you know these questions you can't
96:53
really answer but but i would probably
96:56
if i was going to
96:57
pitch this i would go really big and say
97:00
we're going to
97:02
make our way off the linkedin platform
97:04
and we're going to do
97:05
facebook and then we're going to we're
97:06
going to sort of have this synergy of
97:09
all this
97:09
of this community and so on that that is
97:12
going to make us immune to any kind of
97:14
um
97:14
attack from linkedin or any of or
97:17
anybody that's a partner of linkedin the
97:19
crm space
97:21
also i think the trend is in your favor
97:24
like the control of people's data
97:26
being a browser plug-in or something
97:28
like that i think in future
97:30
the objection sites have to how people
97:33
use the data
97:34
that is kind of their data or that they
97:36
have access to
97:37
have to be treated by those companies
97:39
more carefully
97:40
so anyway again i know nothing but it
97:43
it's something i would use right now so
97:45
it sounds amazing oh man
97:47
right now i do my other return linkedin
97:49
i just
97:50
tired of managing the little windows a
97:52
little dms window it just drives me nuts
97:54
all right let's move let's move to um to
97:56
tsar global so that one is interesting
97:58
it's really
97:59
targeting a niche market like it's
98:02
jewelry for
98:03
um biggest bigger sizes basically
98:06
and um it's it's had traction it's been
98:09
running on for
98:10
almost a year so it's good to see
98:12
traction because sometimes you can
98:13
put a question mark on something and
98:15
then the market
98:16
speaks but do what what advice would you
98:19
give lucine who's here in the audience
98:22
sounds amazing absolutely amazing
98:26
i did a swimwear company for a while
98:28
that was with my sister
98:29
and it was customized swimwear for uh
98:32
sizes that aren't catered to
98:33
uh normally and it's such an incredibly
98:36
large market like the
98:38
uh number of people out there looking
98:39
for this kind of thing and not catered
98:41
to
98:41
in 2021 still continues to surprise me
98:44
so
98:45
it sounds amazing the um
98:49
logistics of managing that kind of
98:51
supply is is
98:52
was the problem for swimwear and maybe
98:54
the problem for yourself as well
98:56
depending on the breadth of
98:57
sizes that you offer but it sounds
98:59
fantastic
99:01
everything sounds fantastic i'm going to
99:03
say this a lot but i mean
99:05
the audience the online audience big
99:08
spread it's
99:10
50 said it's got potential uh and then
99:13
seven percent say take my money now
99:16
and then thirty percent said oh it's
99:18
going to be a long haul so
99:20
sorry yeah sorry
99:23
yeah i'd say this is the thing if you
99:25
judge things by
99:27
like if i was to pick who i wanted to
99:29
make the most short-term money on today
99:31
i'd probably pick this company because
99:33
you know i think she's right that she
99:35
could grow this from 10 grand a month
99:37
to 100 a month pretty quickly so if i
99:39
could persuade her to
99:41
to to that she needed my capital and i
99:43
could get a decent share of that i could
99:45
make a very quick dollar
99:46
now that but when we come to a pitching
99:49
competition we know
99:50
you know we normally have criteria that
99:52
are far bigger than that short-term
99:54
return
99:54
you know we want to see what are we
99:56
creating about brands
99:58
about awareness of people who have
100:01
sizing
100:02
who have difficulty with sizing what
100:06
what can we do to cater for them can we
100:09
can we
100:09
can we release a whole range of
100:11
different products um
100:13
you know can we can we you know can we
100:16
have a range of pens or you know
100:18
where is the direction for absolute
100:20
scale that's what we usually require in
100:22
pitching competitions
100:23
but yeah this is this is a take my money
100:25
and give me a nice share and i'll get me
100:27
out of there in
100:28
a year or two's time and i'll be very
100:29
happy kind of deal i think
100:32
there you go listening also exhibit a
100:35
because
100:36
something that can make money and is a
100:38
nice thing for the world
100:40
like people complain about entrepreneurs
100:43
and it's like no
100:44
this like make the kind of entrepreneur
100:45
and the kind of company that you want to
100:46
see in the world
100:47
and you can make the world a better
100:49
place it's nice
100:51
i love i'm always in love with um
100:53
companies that are making money from the
100:55
get go
100:55
like it's it's it shows you quick wins
100:58
like so important for the founder to see
101:00
this is working like you know somebody
101:02
received somebody paid money for it
101:04
receive it and then lucini told us about
101:06
having returned customers so that's a
101:08
double validation because
101:10
for other customers for other founders
101:12
i'm thinking uh
101:13
the last picture that we had a
101:14
microgenesis which is in biotech which
101:17
which
101:17
you know it takes it takes a long time
101:19
to get traction like the
101:21
at least when you get some sales like
101:22
you've got that that quick win that
101:24
keeps you
101:24
keeps you going basically um
101:28
the next one was um egosphere and
101:31
the challenge here is you know when it's
101:33
b2c
101:34
then we can relate to um to the problem
101:37
and the solution but when it gets to b2b
101:38
that's that's a bit tougher right so
101:40
this one was about
101:41
um what was it about
101:46
it's from uts startup isn't it yeah pete
101:48
i'm going to throw to you because
101:50
i know you've been doing an analysis of
101:52
fish burner startups and the kind of
101:53
startups that tend to do well
101:55
and i think uh the characterization of
101:57
this might be something that's relevant
101:58
to that
102:00
okay i don't want to i want to do david
102:03
the the entrepreneur
102:04
um injustice but but um you know he
102:07
he's he's talking about uh uh the
102:11
the i think at the layout of
102:13
manufacturing plants
102:14
um using machine learning um
102:18
now now i i think i think if here's a
102:21
look
102:22
see with each of these startups it quite
102:23
chose the criteria and said which
102:25
company did this
102:27
and i i think i could create a winner
102:28
from every every single one
102:30
so for example which company would might
102:32
have the greatest impact in new south
102:34
wales man
102:34
uh new south wales economy this
102:37
particular one if it got off the ground
102:39
it had the capital that dave is looking
102:41
for
102:42
then i think it can have a serious
102:44
impact
102:45
not only in its first um
102:48
its first incarnation as is helping
102:50
manufacturing businesses
102:52
improve their productivity but but that
102:55
that deep understanding of deep learning
102:57
uh the deep factory experience
102:59
the local experience with the local
103:02
process control and so on i think could
103:04
expand into something bigger um but then
103:07
then a
103:07
judge has to make an estimate about the
103:09
startup of the entrepreneur
103:11
the capital required and so on you see
103:14
it's a it's
103:14
um i i you know and how believable is
103:18
i think dave i think dave is he's for
103:21
himself
103:22
i think he's in definitely in the right
103:24
direction i think i think
103:26
he's going to make himself very valuable
103:27
into the future um
103:29
i'd need to dig deeper to work out the
103:31
potential of this one
103:34
and i was kind of getting to the point
103:36
of uh there were
103:38
so many companies in the fishburners
103:39
data that were doing b2b
103:41
stuff based on this some industry
103:43
expertise and they start out consulting
103:44
do a couple of consulting gigs and then
103:46
productize something and then make it
103:47
better and better
103:49
and it seems to work quite well around
103:50
here uh and in
103:52
the kind of stuff that you're doing uh
103:54
it needs fixing here
103:55
uh it seems so incredible and people
103:59
should be throwing money at this
104:00
as with everyone here but uh for
104:02
manufacturing in australia to make sure
104:04
this actually works well
104:07
and for the online audience uh don't
104:09
forget to um to ask questions on um
104:11
in the chat because we can see your
104:12
questions and if aaron and nate you
104:14
could put up the
104:15
the chat room on the screen so um marie
104:17
and i can see it that will help us
104:20
cool all right moving on to um to snack
104:23
so um this one it was voted um so
104:27
80 of the audience voted above three so
104:30
it's got potential 30
104:31
this is a real deal 30 take my money 20
104:34
percent
104:35
um it goes back to this is something
104:37
that people can understand very
104:38
very quickly right it's it's about
104:40
helping teachers to
104:41
um to deliver the message to to students
104:44
and especially online with
104:45
you know with us parents having to do uh
104:49
teaching ourselves at home uh but what
104:52
was interesting in that story
104:53
is it's been a it's been a pivot of
104:56
previous idea and it was developing
104:58
in less than three weeks really and uh
105:00
to see it come to that
105:02
level of of of development having that
105:05
level of traction having 108
105:07
teachers uh sign up already it tells you
105:09
a lot about
105:10
how entrepreneurship is about iteration
105:12
you you've
105:13
you go and try one id and then you try
105:15
another and then you start to get better
105:17
at how to get things done how to get
105:18
traction what's your thought on this
105:20
uh i know so many teachers that need
105:22
this
105:23
and i'm sure a lot of people here do as
105:25
well
105:26
it's one of those things you think why
105:28
doesn't this exist already this is
105:30
uh kind of weird uh which is can be a
105:33
good sign
105:34
usually is a good sign so thank you for
105:35
doing it um
105:37
but i'd be curious to know what you went
105:38
through before you got to that
105:42
uh do you want to share
105:51
um
105:56
so for your online audience he was
105:58
trying to um
105:59
help influencers on social media so
106:01
content creators stills
106:02
still to monetize um their interaction
106:05
so
106:05
pay to ask a question to an influencer
106:08
so still
106:08
link to uh online creator somewhere
106:16
see this is why i have no confidence in
106:18
myself
106:19
in judging startups because you walk in
106:21
say i'm doing this it's about influences
106:23
and then you go okay whatever and then
106:26
something happens and then it turns into
106:27
this and this is incredible
106:28
so i agree i saw gekko's pitch a year
106:31
ago and
106:32
i saw this one it was so different yeah
106:36
not that the last idea was not good but
106:38
they're saying no one can tell what
106:39
something ends up being
106:42
pete so yeah i agree agree with you
106:44
julian about um
106:46
about what you said uh that winning
106:49
yeah winning pitching competition you've
106:51
got to have this big ugly
106:53
uh sort of amazing picture
106:56
whereas what's best for you as a startup
106:59
might be
106:59
might be taking something like this
107:01
iterating with the few schools and
107:03
learning
107:04
where the opportunities are in the in
107:06
the um
107:08
you know in the in this space i mean to
107:11
make this really big
107:12
you're probably going to need a lot of
107:14
capital right
107:15
why because you know let's say it is a
107:18
great idea and it sounds like this could
107:20
be a new style of learning
107:22
um there are going to be big players out
107:24
there who say this wow they're getting
107:25
traction
107:26
let's saw a lot of money on this um so i
107:29
sort of think i think
107:30
i think you're right julian that that um
107:33
it pays not just to think about
107:35
about winning it pays to think about how
107:38
to maximize your learning as you
107:40
as you're constructing your business
107:41
model
107:44
i love this all right so now we
107:47
fall into the world of video games and
107:50
uh we just talked about a startup who
107:52
you know pivoted then we saw the result
107:54
of three weeks of intense work and then
107:58
boom we jumped to a startup with uh
107:59
who's raised already one million in
108:01
one million dollars for seed so how do
108:04
we
108:05
how do judges how do investors compare
108:08
those
108:08
two types of pitches because it's two
108:11
different levels of maturity really
108:13
uh it's it's a lot easier someone else
108:16
has already uh
108:17
given it some scrutiny and and likes it
108:19
and it looks amazing uh based on what
108:21
you've been able to do with that money
108:22
so far
108:23
uh and the credibility of the team and
108:25
the
108:26
importance of the problem uh it sounds
108:29
amazing
108:30
um but yeah i think people can sit back
108:32
a little bit and rely on other people's
108:34
um uh filtering and diligence uh in
108:36
their decisions i think uh pete
108:41
yeah i think i think you're right murray
108:42
asked answer julian's question
108:44
um you know it's it's it's a little bit
108:47
unfair that
108:48
in a sense that you know look often a
108:51
judge is looking for
108:52
signs of traction or evidence of
108:55
of future traction so when someone's got
108:58
that kind of validation like the sadness
109:01
like it gives you a sort of a an
109:03
advantage
109:04
the only negative thing would be like
109:06
well yeah exactly how you said what have
109:07
you done with that money so far
109:09
are you using it in the right direction
109:11
how are you intending to spend it
109:13
maybe someone who doesn't have that
109:14
money is doing something something more
109:16
smarter i i i that's they're the sort of
109:18
things i would
109:19
ask in a due diligence quit right a due
109:22
diligence session rather than a pitching
109:23
competition but yeah i think
109:25
i think right makes it because it makes
109:27
a lot easier
109:28
so he's only had it a month uh do you
109:31
need more
109:34
okay okay well you are asking for two
109:37
for two millions next
109:38
the next round aren't you two and a half
109:40
sorry i'm sorry
109:45
and something um in in practice uh i
109:48
asked
109:49
rob what keeps you up at night um i
109:52
thought he was gonna say well you know
109:53
i've got a
109:54
team of 25 people that you know that i
109:56
need to that i'm hiring right
109:58
and he tells me um i just hope the kids
110:00
like it
110:02
and that's that's always a challenge
110:05
he's applying a recipe that that works
110:07
um he's applying a good to market to go
110:10
to market strategy that works
110:11
um revenue stream that works they've
110:13
been demonstrated by all the big players
110:15
but it's this game of entertainment you
110:18
don't know if the kids are going to get
110:19
onto it
110:20
how do you feel about being responsible
110:23
in some way for the safety of
110:25
uh billions of children
110:48
so for the online audience rob said he's
110:51
been doing this for 15 years
110:54
okay good answer what about that julian
110:57
like that that gentleman
111:00
with the game struck me as someone that
111:04
had you know deep deep knowledge of
111:07
of the customer so you know to be honest
111:09
i don't know much about kids games
111:11
so what so and you know you know a judge
111:14
is often faced with it
111:15
with a pitch that he has and the whole
111:17
idea about him
111:18
so i look to someone that has a sense
111:21
that they
111:22
know their audience in a real
111:24
market-based way
111:26
and i did sense that that that gentleman
111:29
did have some deep knowledge so i'd give
111:31
him you know higher points
111:33
point for that even not knowing the
111:36
potential of this particular idea
111:38
it's really important to have that
111:40
access and knowledge to your customers
111:43
yeah and during doing all the the two or
111:46
three weeks of practice
111:47
um that's what we saw we saw like a real
111:49
knowledge of of the the customer and
111:51
what was hard for for rob is he's been
111:54
doing a lot of 20 minutes pitches
111:56
because he was raising funding and for
111:57
him to reduce down to five minutes
112:00
he was pulling his air out and when i
112:02
told him that usually it's
112:03
three minutes that was tough but uh good
112:07
job in the end
112:08
that's a sorry to interrupt that's a
112:10
really good point when you reduce it
112:12
down to such a small amount of content
112:14
it becomes so hard to differentiate
112:16
between pitches
112:17
because let's say you had a five second
112:19
pitch uh
112:20
anyone probably can make that sound good
112:24
uh and so it becomes quite a task for
112:27
the judges that are judging at the
112:28
moment to differentiate between
112:30
five-minute eight-minute pictures uh
112:32
it's uh
112:34
not a lot of time to be extremely uh
112:37
convincing or not in in what you're
112:38
doing
112:39
like i think a lot of people can end up
112:40
being convincing in a couple of minutes
112:44
good point um all right for the online
112:46
audience we're waiting for your question
112:48
uh you can ask question to pete
112:50
to murray or to even some of the um the
112:52
pitchers that are still in the room so
112:54
please go for it
112:55
um we moved to the geek academy the
112:57
geekery has called
112:58
the highest score for um for the online
113:01
audience uh
113:01
42 voted um number five um
113:05
this is again this is showing traction
113:09
only in the past two months right but
113:10
showing real traction i mean like
113:12
showing the video of the kids having fun
113:15
and you can you can
113:16
see you can see the value right there
113:18
right
113:19
um what future do you see for for this
113:21
startup and uh
113:22
what's your advice uh it's amazing
113:26
as with everything else but especially
113:28
this i've got kids
113:29
i worry about what they're going to be
113:30
exposed to i i love
113:33
the education system in new south wales
113:35
in particular it's fantastic but it's
113:36
not going to keep up with the kind of
113:38
things that you can keep up with
113:39
it's not going to do the incursions and
113:41
the exposure of things that people don't
113:44
necessarily sign up to in a way that you
113:46
will do
113:47
so it's needed it's a critical part of
113:49
the ecosystem and it actually sounds
113:51
like you
113:52
other people to make it happen well uh
113:54
so
113:55
this tick tick tick tick tick the online
113:57
audience is
113:58
really quite harsh uh in the scores that
114:01
they've given through the night but i'm
114:03
glad to see them giving a good score
114:04
there
114:06
what i like here before you you jump in
114:08
pit is um
114:10
you know it's a year of cove it is it's
114:11
a year social distancing it's a year
114:13
where we have only
114:14
like 40 people in a room instead of 200.
114:17
and and here we have we have a startup
114:19
that decided to do
114:21
physical events and that is that is
114:24
thriving so it goes to show that there
114:26
is opportunity
114:27
uh in all markets um so good on you
114:31
can you do entrepreneurship ah
114:37
they're for kids
114:47
okay so
114:51
yeah you need to do a bait and switch i
114:53
think for
114:54
entrepreneurship which i need to stop
114:57
saying
114:57
um but the like i think entrepreneurship
115:01
is one of the rare things where people
115:04
are not exposed to it as a desirable
115:06
career choice
115:07
it is not a high atar requirement it is
115:09
not a kind of
115:11
not overtly put towards people there's
115:13
business studies and there's design and
115:15
tech but there's not how you can
115:17
actually employ yourself
115:18
and do it soon and that kind of thing um
115:21
so i think there's
115:22
solutions needed there as well but sorry
115:25
that's what i do hey
115:28
pete um guys i'm gonna look over my
115:32
shoulder onto your notes because uh you
115:34
know you were both parents and i
115:36
i think i was writing something to
115:37
murray at that point so i i don't really
115:39
have much to add um
115:41
uh but uh yeah and this is kind of one
115:44
of the things where judges
115:46
you know when i when they don't have
115:48
this direct experience
115:50
um they've got to they've got to look at
115:52
other cues so
115:53
you know as to as to how to judge your
115:56
your pitching competition i'm frankly
115:58
i'm not
115:58
i'm not the right judge to be judging
116:00
judging your idea at this point um to be
116:02
honest so
116:03
so that just goes to say that maybe when
116:06
you're pitching
116:07
thinking well look forget about pete and
116:10
forget about the fact that he's
116:11
whatever he's done he's not the right
116:13
audience for me i need to pitch this to
116:15
the to the right people and not try to
116:18
you know make too many people happy that
116:20
that they don't really understand
116:23
i'm going to push harder on that because
116:26
i think that's a really important point
116:28
what could they have done
116:29
in that pitch that for a pete audience
116:32
would make this uh more understandable
116:35
more convincing
116:36
what kind of uh proof would they need
116:39
for people would
116:45
you know i'm gonna go for really lame
116:47
things like um
116:49
like you know traction um i'm gonna look
116:52
at
116:52
i'm to be honest how often you know in
116:54
cases like this i'll be honest with you
116:56
i love this format because i can be
116:58
completely honest
116:58
now sometimes i'll be sitting there
117:00
going i have no idea
117:02
i'll be looking across to see how
117:03
enthusiastic my other judges are right
117:06
um so so but you know traction
117:09
um you know i'll get it look honestly
117:12
part of
117:12
judging and part of investment is is
117:15
trying to read the person
117:17
and see how much they know it's a little
117:19
bit of a con game in a sense but
117:21
the the investors the investors are
117:24
especially good at reading people so i'd
117:26
be just trying to
117:27
read the person and you know how
117:29
believable they are but most of all i'd
117:31
be looking over my shoulder at your
117:32
notes have you been conned by a pitch
117:36
before peter
117:38
and can you share some examples of uh
117:40
what has happened
117:42
well you know i look i mean it's it's
117:46
you know teal teal came up with a story
117:49
that
117:49
it was i wouldn't say i was con but my
117:53
business partner was gone because he
117:54
didn't have a clue
117:55
you know about about the sizes size of
117:58
opportunity but it's just so
118:00
so easy to but then you know oh man it's
118:03
so complicated because then he
118:05
he conned the right people he got enough
118:07
money and then he changed the business
118:09
model so this is why it's so
118:11
so unpredictable um uh but
118:14
you know often times i you know there
118:16
have been times where someone's come
118:18
across as very believable
118:20
i have no clue they're doing you know um
118:23
a robotic arm for removing cysts um you
118:26
know and i'm like
118:27
what you know and uh um and i've just
118:31
had to
118:31
i've had to wing it i said has this got
118:33
tga approvals
118:35
um no you've got to this is this is the
118:38
thing
118:38
that's why you can't you don't know who
118:40
your judges necessarily how much
118:42
knowledge they have
118:43
you really should be you know pitching
118:45
to those people who have the most
118:47
knowledge in
118:48
um and in this case i'm definitely not
118:51
one of them
118:51
yeah but then you end up with theranos
118:54
and like things like that where
118:56
it can just have nothing but be very
118:58
convincing and
118:59
maybe fake it for long enough to make it
119:01
into a thing
119:02
that is let me that is a really
119:04
important point murray that people
119:06
should know
119:07
um and and great pitchers know this well
119:10
investors can be like sheep so if
119:13
there's an influential investor
119:15
in the group and and he or she is being
119:18
is looking all excited um you know that
119:22
can be a great way to get you know so
119:25
you know you could pick and yeah
119:27
sometimes i see i've seen this in china
119:29
sometimes i'll put people
119:30
they'll plant people in the audience to
119:32
ask really intelligent questions and
119:34
look like they're an investor
119:36
and that can often have a influential
119:38
effect on
119:39
on people's perceptions yeah 100 there
119:42
is a sheep factor in
119:44
investment you know there's no question
119:46
about that
119:52
audience um would you enroll your child
119:56
at the geek academy um
119:58
and i was thinking about it while pete
120:01
was
120:01
answering the question and i was i
120:04
realized that i've already done it for
120:05
for my son
120:06
not for the geek academy but for the
120:09
equivalent for for music and i did that
120:11
during the school day and i was thinking
120:13
what about the geek academy and my
120:15
my answer straight away was well it's
120:18
not
120:18
around where i live so i can't and
120:20
that's the thing with physical things
120:22
like i just want to go and drop off my
120:23
kids
120:23
and do it there but the concept of uh
120:26
paying um
120:27
two to three hundred dollars and have my
120:29
kid getting
120:30
um taken care of but
120:33
on the creative inside that's what
120:35
really attracted me to uh to that
120:37
musical
120:38
um you got to to create a ban in one day
120:42
and so that's what i see here is like
120:44
it's really appealing to you
120:46
to create to creativity and as we said
120:47
it's not offered at school right now so
120:50
i will do it what about you what about
120:52
you yeah definitely i've got a
120:53
two-year-old and a four-year-old so it's
120:55
a bit of a stretch
120:56
but uh yeah go nuts
121:03
okay so the next one is um gecko so um
121:06
gecko i saw
121:07
i saw a pitch last year um and after the
121:10
pitch i went to put my tent
121:12
uh on there and now a year later later
121:14
it has pivoted and i like the the focus
121:17
on um on on events and audio events
121:20
can you tell us more because you know
121:22
you've seen ben
121:23
at uts startup for a while so you know
121:25
what he's up to oh
121:26
ben ben uh
121:30
ben um
121:37
exhibit a of someone that
121:40
is able to manifest this opportunity
121:44
really clearly really compellingly every
121:46
single slide is hitting a point that
121:48
people need to understand and you can be
121:50
anyone and look at that and go yeah this
121:53
makes sense there's
121:55
this is obviously going to happen why
121:56
doesn't this exist
121:58
and you look like you actually going to
122:00
do it and hey it's actually going in
122:01
that direction
122:02
as well so i don't have to believe you i
122:03
can look at the numbers
122:07
wow um sorry that's not the most
122:10
articulate thing i've ever said
122:12
but i'm hopefully conveying my uh how
122:15
impressed i am with
122:16
how far you've come and how good it's
122:17
looking but
122:20
there was one slide that that got me
122:22
thinking is when he looked at the
122:24
competition
122:25
uh but looking at the competition as
122:27
validation like it's already
122:29
been done in the uk so why not in
122:32
australia and
122:33
that that's what gave me the confidence
122:35
here so it's always
122:36
that's why it's always good to talk
122:37
about competition and to see to
122:39
as as a demonstration that there is
122:41
there's a market for it
122:43
pit pit input yeah you think about
122:47
look the thing about ben is uh
122:50
you know when i i'll be honest man you
122:52
know i think you know when i first saw
122:53
band
122:54
i thought mate this guy's
122:57
this guy's too big for his boots you
122:59
know i thought he was dreaming too too
123:01
big
123:02
and and you know he just goes to show
123:05
what he's what he's picked up on i think
123:07
what what comes through with ben's pitch
123:09
um you know a year or year or so on
123:11
since those first time is that
123:13
he's really talked to a lot of people he
123:16
starts to talk the language of
123:18
he starts to press the investors buttons
123:20
i know he's been talking to investors
123:22
i know he's been talking to partners he
123:25
starts to pick up on their language
123:27
he you know he got me in a corner and
123:29
drilled me and told me to give me your
123:31
worst
123:32
and he starts to find out what the
123:35
people want to hear
123:37
um and i and and you know it's part of
123:40
pitching as a con game
123:42
and i think frankly ben does conning
123:44
really well
123:45
really well i mean honestly you do have
123:48
to convince people
123:50
who have resources to join your team
123:53
to help support you and i think i think
123:56
you know i
123:57
i still i still think you know there's a
123:59
lot there's a big hill to climb with ben
124:01
but i think
124:02
his enthusiasm his ambition and his
124:04
learning curve
124:06
is i think as julian pointed out earlier
124:08
you know he's really he's really come a
124:09
long way in learning
124:11
learning the right buttons to press in
124:13
his pitch
124:14
do you think someone could be so
124:16
convincing in their pitch that you would
124:18
invest
124:19
just knowing that they're going to get
124:20
other people to invest as well and maybe
124:23
they're not going to be able to figure
124:24
it out but they'll be able to hire the
124:25
people that will
124:27
if they can convince me and everyone
124:29
else in the room then i have to invest
124:31
because they're going to keep doing that
124:32
for everyone else as well
124:34
100 murray see this is part of the con
124:36
game um
124:38
but you know you've got to be in you
124:40
know in a sufficient pool of capital
124:43
so people around have to be serious
124:44
about investing but if someone's just so
124:48
so much of a con person that you think
124:50
they're gonna just not stop at anything
124:52
sometimes i'm
124:53
look honestly sometimes i'm sitting
124:54
there thinking i don't believe a word i
124:56
don't believe a word but she's you're
124:58
convincing
124:59
um and and and it's
125:02
and it's sort of exactly like he said
125:03
murray that that if the person is
125:05
is hungry enough and believes enough
125:09
and and you know and can convince enough
125:12
people sometimes they can make it happen
125:14
i've definitely seen that before and you
125:16
know you could look at the airbnb
125:17
guys this example you could look at the
125:19
paypal prizes example
125:20
they just kept believing and they just
125:22
kept modifying until they got hit the
125:24
right notes
125:25
can i provide a counter example of
125:28
people that go
125:29
in pitching contests uh serially and
125:32
people
125:32
particularly that travel the world and
125:34
say i got first place in this one first
125:36
place in this one
125:37
first place in this one that's
125:38
attraction right
125:40
that's the thing they become very good
125:42
at matching the judging criteria
125:44
that's right and so for everyone that's
125:45
about to hear whether you're successful
125:47
or not tonight
125:48
keep that in mind judging criteria is an
125:50
important thing and judging is an
125:52
important thing but
125:53
you can design for a contest and not
125:55
necessarily for making a successful
125:57
company
125:58
in design for the contest but not for
125:59
the market
126:01
all right uh for for the online audience
126:03
we had all the judges uh joining us
126:05
and so now we are all excited to know
126:08
who's gonna
126:09
get uh the prizes so just want to thank
126:12
you uh
126:12
pete pete would join us from the horse
126:15
shed in canberra
126:17
[Applause]
126:21
and uh and of course thank you thank you
126:23
maria again for for being here for
126:25
supporting um
126:26
um the guys from uts startup and the
126:28
guys from the mba thank you very much
126:30
thanks very much thank you
126:51
would have been helpful i certainly i
126:53
would have loved to ask
126:54
a few questions but we were beaten by
126:56
all the wonderful questions that
126:57
were asked online it was it was a
126:59
fantastic um
127:00
engagement thank you hello everyone my
127:03
name is prabhu sivabilen i'm the
127:05
associate dean for external engagement
127:07
in the uts business school
127:09
and it gives me really great pleasure to
127:11
be here to frankly be inspired by
127:14
students that i thought the exciting
127:16
subject startup finance and accounting
127:21
why you guys laughing
127:22
[Laughter]
127:25
you know to see you guys here sort of
127:27
yeah you know standing here presenting
127:29
your
127:29
ideas uh in in in just beautiful
127:32
elegant ways that were were far from uh
127:35
a con job uh and so you know it it it
127:39
makes me so proud really to
127:41
to see you all here um now it gives me
127:44
great pleasure
127:45
uh to welcome uh really our judges uh
127:48
jochen should we have
127:49
seats out the front or we might just
127:51
have our judges come to the front where
127:54
i'm going to ask you a few questions
127:56
just to get things going before we
127:58
uh announce the awards um
128:02
and a round of applause absolutely
128:07
so again you know on a friday afternoon
128:10
uh friday evening really
128:11
uh i'm sure our very august
128:15
list of judges have wonderful things to
128:17
do and that there is an opportunity cost
128:18
of their time so we are very grateful
128:20
uh for your making the time to be here
128:22
to help us uh make these really
128:24
important decisions
128:25
in the the the careers of our
128:27
entrepreneurs or the
128:28
the progress of our entrepreneurs um
128:31
just a few questions uh without giving
128:33
too much away before the
128:35
awards were announced i might ask you
128:37
all to perhaps
128:39
spend a minute each uh perhaps passing
128:42
on the mic
128:43
that was a good move from the other side
128:46
and this does get progressively harder
128:48
as you go down because the final person
128:50
no pressure will have to say something
128:52
new um
128:53
but your your general thoughts on the
128:56
pictures today
128:58
uh and and what you think that tells us
129:01
about uh entrepreneurship as it's
129:04
uh if you like progressed in uts through
129:06
these wonderful entrepreneurs
129:08
yes sure um no thank you all so much for
129:10
your pictures today i was so impressed
129:12
by the quality of not only
129:14
the way that you pitch them but also the
129:15
thought that you've put into your ideas
129:18
i think i also felt so much passion
129:21
in the room like you guys really believe
129:22
in your ideas which i think is really
129:24
important and i think you guys were
129:25
having a conversation before about
129:27
um not being a con artist i think that's
129:29
a gist that we got when he came in
129:31
um but you all came across actually
129:33
really authentically which i think will
129:34
stand you in good stead as you go
129:35
forward
129:37
thank you okay well i i think the
129:40
standard was astoundingly high
129:42
which was really a nuisance for the
129:44
judges
129:45
so i want to complain about that i think
129:48
so
129:49
credit to uts as well because i think
129:50
clearly you all very much understand
129:52
all of the aspects that you need to
129:54
understand in order to progress and you
129:55
demonstrate that incredibly well
129:57
anyone in the 16 could have made the top
129:58
10 on any other day anybody in the top
130:00
10 could have won i think it was just an
130:01
amazingly good performance thank you
130:07
so just want to mirror everything that's
130:09
already been said um i think
130:10
in light of covert 19 as well i think
130:13
that you've shown so much resilience and
130:15
the caliber of the presentations we saw
130:17
is a testament to not only yourselves
130:19
but also to uts i think you know it's an
130:21
incredible course and you guys are very
130:22
very lucky to do it but
130:24
um you know one thing that resounded
130:25
throughout is just the quality and also
130:28
just how genuine you really were um so
130:31
yeah it was a pleasure so thank you
130:38
thanks yeah i totally agree with that
130:39
standard is incredible and and the
130:41
amount of
130:42
information in your way you conveyed it
130:44
in five minutes for most of you was
130:46
was just really special one of the
130:48
things i really like is
130:49
is the ones that make you feel something
130:52
i think very few investors now maybe
130:54
some hardcore uh
130:56
solely looking at the dollar the bottom
130:58
line and a lot of you had a real passion
131:00
and something interest and and there was
131:02
social aspects to
131:03
to what you were pitching i think almost
131:05
all of you and that's something that
131:07
makes a judge or an investor feel
131:09
something and be a bit emotionally
131:10
attached
131:11
i thought that's something to really
131:12
keep in mind
131:18
thanks john i'd just like to reiterate
131:21
the comments that were made
131:22
about the implications of it and just
131:24
how well everybody's done
131:26
from a personal presentation perspective
131:30
and i'd like to thank yochan as well for
131:32
organizing a day that is just
131:36
fantastic
131:38
you've prepared the students really well
131:39
and your team have prepared the students
131:41
really well
131:42
um the thing that sort of stood out for
131:43
me today uh on top of what
131:45
others have said is that there's
131:47
actually been a really good
131:49
mix of um use of
131:52
existing technology and technological
131:54
innovation
131:55
so there's been plenty of talk in the
131:57
media recently about
132:00
the way in which australia needs more
132:02
technological innovation and the way in
132:04
which that needs to be applied
132:06
and particularly when you look at things
132:08
like game plan in terms of
132:10
an enabler so um you know that really
132:13
cut through for me today
132:17
it's yeah look being entrepreneur being
132:19
an entrepreneur is very very tough it's
132:21
a tough gig
132:21
and um the the reality is you're gonna
132:24
pitch a lot and you're gonna
132:25
have a closing rate of you know maybe 20
132:27
30 if you're lucky so you're gonna have
132:28
to kind of live with the with the nose
132:31
um it's funny how we you know sort of
132:33
just looking at how you know people sort
132:35
of collaborate on who they want to back
132:37
and i think it's i was kind of mentioned
132:39
before you know
132:40
it's it's those who kind of get you
132:42
emotionally attached with what they're
132:43
doing and you're essentially backing
132:45
the person because the ideas are
132:47
sometimes
132:48
you know may not be the first to market
132:50
but it's the person who
132:51
you think is going to have the
132:52
resilience able to pivot
132:54
and actually just have the resilience to
132:56
be able to put up with
132:58
just being an entrepreneur so
133:01
it's a very diverse group this is my
133:02
fourth year in you know being a judge
133:04
and i have to you know i have to say
133:06
that the caliber has you know
133:08
this year is the best um so
133:11
um you know yeah congratulations to all
133:14
of you
133:15
and for those who don't get an award
133:17
keep going
133:20
um without repeating everybody else um i
133:23
think
133:24
you know in innovation entrepreneurship
133:26
ideas are one thing i think it's
133:27
fantastic that all of you have actually
133:28
taken tangible action
133:30
and i think the first step's always the
133:31
hardest you've all gone out and whether
133:33
it's a product or
133:34
you've openly worn your heart on your
133:36
sleeves in terms of asking the question
133:37
would you buy this i think that's the
133:39
biggest step
133:40
so a big congrats to that you guys
133:42
really you know
133:43
shown being very sort of you know
133:45
vulnerable in terms of pitching those
133:47
ideas
133:47
and i think the fantastic thing about
133:49
uts um i remember working back with you
133:51
guys when i was at cba
133:52
learning is one thing putting into
133:54
action and application
133:56
that's really where uh the marbles
133:58
happen so congrats
134:03
and it is getting hard as you're getting
134:04
down the queue so uh thinking of
134:06
something different
134:07
um i think it was einstein that said
134:09
that you know if you really want to show
134:10
that you know something you have to
134:11
simplify
134:12
and what really blew me away is i
134:14
learned so much from every one of the
134:15
pictures
134:16
they were very different in their nature
134:18
very different ideas
134:19
and you managed to as was said earlier
134:21
in a really short period of time
134:22
takers obviously months of consideration
134:26
consultation a lot of thoughts gone into
134:28
this absolutely and you managed to just
134:31
distill that down to a couple of minutes
134:33
and get the message across
134:34
with the passion um and with the plans
134:36
about where you're going forward from
134:38
here it was just
134:38
incredible and what i like about doing
134:41
this is
134:42
you just learn so much you learn so much
134:43
about people you learn so much about how
134:45
they manage this
134:46
their confidence how they deal with
134:48
stress and
134:49
the approach they take to taking these
134:52
problems and turn them into solutions so
134:54
i agree with everyone you all deserve a
134:55
round of applause thank you
135:01
um not a lot left for me to add but
135:04
what i would say is uh you know echoing
135:07
all the comments you know
135:08
you guys have done a very good job and
135:10
you know i don't think we don't
135:11
appreciate all the work that's gone on
135:13
behind the scenes
135:14
you know this is at the end of what is
135:16
for you guys a very long and demanding
135:18
course
135:19
uh you have been helped by uts of course
135:21
um but
135:22
you know really well done to all of you
135:24
for distilling all the information and
135:26
having
135:27
you know the passion and the uh the
135:29
determination to get here and
135:31
the only thing i would say is you know
135:32
this is just the beginning um
135:34
you know this is the beginning and if
135:36
you really committed to your
135:38
ideas uh it can and will go further and
135:40
you know
135:41
always remember that there are people
135:42
around you who can help
135:44
who would be really willing to help so
135:46
really cast your net very wide would be
135:48
my advice
135:49
as an ex analyst i remember what always
135:52
amazed me is how many people are willing
135:54
to help
135:54
you know and it might not be money don't
135:56
scare people away and say i want money i
135:58
want money
135:59
you might just say can i have ketchup
136:01
for a coffee
136:02
can i get your ideas what do you know
136:04
what do you think ask people for advice
136:06
they love giving
136:07
advice well done thanks
136:13
i'm sure you'll all agree uh that the
136:16
the quality of advice there itself
136:18
irrespective of
136:19
whoever won or not uh you will have
136:21
benefited from this exercise
136:23
um since our sincere thanks again to our
136:26
wonderful group of judges can i ask you
136:28
to take your
136:29
seats please with the exception of
136:32
uts adjunct professor david langford who
136:34
will be announcing
136:36
the award winners thank you cheers
137:03
okay thanks very much the stage is set
137:14
as all of the judges have said there was
137:16
um a
137:17
you know a wonderful range of uh
137:19
presentations that were made today
137:21
and uh as part of a competition there
137:24
are
137:25
um obviously those who will
137:28
um be happy with outcomes and some who
137:30
might not be happy with outcomes but
137:32
the great outcome here today is that
137:35
you've all got a vote of confidence
137:36
from us and we as a team are here to
137:39
support you
137:40
over the long term and through your
137:42
careers as well
137:43
uts is an organization which is folk
137:45
which is focused on lifelong learning so
137:48
we hope that you'll maintain your
137:49
long-term relationship with the
137:51
university
137:53
so on that note i'll get to the prizes
137:57
and the first prize which i'm going to
137:59
announce is the gilbert and tobin prize
138:01
which is to the value of five thousand
138:03
dollars
138:04
of in-kind ip services and that's open
138:07
to
138:08
mbie students and the winner is
138:13
[Applause]
138:22
microgenesis
138:31
[Applause]
138:36
yeah sorry yeah we're happy with that
138:39
oh sorry
138:48
i'm sorry it's just turned off not again
138:50
that's okay
138:59
thank you well done
139:06
uh the second prize which i'll be
139:08
announcing is the alan betts memorial
139:11
prize
139:12
which is 1500 in cash and that's open to
139:15
all participating students
139:17
and the winner is gecko
139:21
[Applause]
139:44
um and maybe they should stand next to
139:47
you for a photograph
139:49
perfect thank you um the third prize
139:53
today is the uts business schools
139:55
dean's award for technology adoption
139:58
and the value of the award is five
140:00
thousand dollars in cash and it's open
140:02
to all participating students
140:04
and the winner is ergosphere
140:16
thank you very much we'll take a photo
140:28
cheers
140:42
and now we move on to the uts business
140:44
school dean's award for social justice
140:48
and that's in the value of five thousand
140:49
dollars in cash
140:51
it's open to all participating students
140:54
and the winner is
140:55
youth in motion
141:10
congratulations
141:16
[Applause]
141:23
the uts business school dean's award for
141:25
a female entrepreneur
141:28
and that again is five thousand dollars
141:29
in cash open to all participating
141:32
students
141:33
and the winner is zart global
141:47
thank you
141:56
the aqual technologies prize is five
142:00
thousand dollars in cash
142:01
awarded for an innovation related
142:04
venture
142:05
it's open to all mbae students
142:08
and the winner is snacks
142:26
off and on it's technology related
142:36
thank you
142:51
the kazakhos prize in entrepreneurship
142:53
for a social venture
142:55
which is uh valued at five thousand
142:58
dollars in cash
142:59
and five thousand dollars of in-kind
143:01
services and it's open to all
143:03
participating students
143:05
and the winner is youth in motion
143:21
[Applause]
143:27
the eighth prize is the kazakhos prize
143:30
in entrepreneurship for an early stage
143:33
venture
143:34
and again this is five thousand dollars
143:36
in cash
143:37
and five thousand dollars of in-kind
143:39
services and that's open to all
143:40
participating students
143:43
and the winner is snacks
144:01
[Applause]
144:12
okay
144:14
now i'm just making sure that i'm
144:15
haven't missed anything
144:17
down to the final prize which is the
144:19
comm bank and telstra
144:21
best venture prize
144:24
and it's uh to the value of ten thousand
144:27
dollars
144:28
in cash and it's awarded to the best
144:30
venture it's open to all participating
144:33
students
144:35
and the winner is vr realms
144:46
thank you so much
145:00
well done everyone
145:14
and before we pass on to joking can i
145:16
say that we were part of this
145:17
large ms teams group chat uh relating to
145:21
the organization of this event um and if
145:24
i got a
145:24
dollar for every time i saw an alert on
145:27
my laptop or phone from jochen with a
145:29
message
145:30
because he really and and so many others
145:33
uh you know bezos would be looking over
145:36
his shoulder you know he uh joachim and
145:38
team put so much effort in
145:40
um none of this would be possible
145:42
without the team so
145:43
thank you joachim the whole team hannah
145:45
really everyone thank you so much
145:47
thanks thanks
145:51
okay uh okay thanks guys uh because you
145:54
can be seated now that's okay
145:56
unless you want to stand up for a bit
145:57
longer thanks so much and well done well
145:59
deserved everyone
146:01
look uh this pretty much concludes our
146:03
event
146:04
uh just once more for everyone thank you
146:06
for being here today thanks for coming
146:08
thanks for judging thanks for being
146:10
audience thanks for being online we had
146:12
quite a few viewers online so
146:14
this went really well i think uh in the
146:16
end of the day in a coveted kind of
146:18
world we managed to have a
146:19
event in the room and we have an event
146:21
online
146:22
so let me just uh yeah reiterate what
146:25
was being said before
146:26
uh this is not possible without a lot of
146:28
support the support of our judges
146:30
the support of our donors the support of
146:32
the uts startups community that chipped
146:34
in
146:34
and sort of said are we going to help
146:36
out and i'm incredibly lucky and happy
146:38
that that we can have these kinds of
146:40
events for
146:41
for our students and that's what we're
146:43
here for so
146:44
thanks everyone there's a list of people
146:46
who are involved today there's many more
146:47
behind
146:48
the scenes but let's go and have some
146:50
networking
146:51
drinks and kind of pace down in cafe so
146:54
thanks all
146:54
and see you down
147:02
[Music]
147:05
you
My experience at the UTS Venture Day was a catalyst for both personal and business development. It is a powerful platform to learn and grow, all while being supported by some of the industries best.
- Cody Adam, Co-Founder at snack, Venture Day Winner
